Last month, Joseph and Sonya Smith made headlines when they were convicted of the 2003 beating death of their 8-year-old son, Josef. The trial brought out accusations of repeated child abuse and neglect, but those who know the Smiths say the allegations simply aren’t true.
In fact, the Smiths, currently awaiting a March 27 sentencing date, are the true victims, Gwen Shamblin, a spokeswoman for the couple said.
“This was an unbelievable rush to judgment and these parents are totally innocent,” Shamblin, a member of the Tennessee-based Remnant Fellowship Church, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. The Smiths are members of a suburban Atlanta branch of the church and, according to prosecutors, followed a strict diet and discipline routine created by Shamblin.
Shamblin denies that the church advocated severe discipline and emphatically believes that the Smiths were caring parents of Josef and two other children, Mykel, now 16, and James, now 6. The Smiths’ two surviving children are now living with their maternal grandmother. But they long to see the two boys they’ve been away from for three years and they wish they could hold Josef just one more time, Shamblin said.
“Josef Smith was a spoiled child. All the children had all the toys they could ever ask for,” Shamblin said, adding that the discipline imposed by the couple was no more severe than typical Southern parents trying to raise good children.
“There are some parents that lovingly discipline their children, but viewed spanking as the last resort,” Shamblin said. “And the Smiths are like that, too.”
The case prompted Cobb County officials to raid the Smith’s church in 2004 as part of the investigation of Josef’s death. However, the raid did not provide law enforcement officers with a link between Josef’s death and the church.
It was during a prayer session held at the church and with others church members via the Internet, that Josef reportedly became “unresponsive,” according to police reports. He later died at a local hospital, but police say the parents had, at one point, placed him in a wooden box to discipline him. Shamblin vehemently denies that ever took place.
The line between discipline and abuse may be fine in some eyes, but according to the Cobb County Medical Examiner, Josef Smith died from blows to the head and firefighters who responded to a 911 call placed by the family in October 2003 said bruises covered the boy’s body.
The bruises, the Smiths and their supporters contend, were the result of a severe case of eczema, a skin disorder in which skin becomes inflamed. The Smiths’ attorney secured a prominent Washington, D.C.-based dermatologist to testify on the condition and raise points that the bruises were indeed due to eczema, which is very common among blacks, a point that was lost on the predominantly white jury, Shamblin said.
“I’m from Memphis and I didn’t really believe that there would be some railroad job in court but I feel like I am in the twilight zone with this,” said Shamblin, who is white. “This has just been the weirdest thing, from the judge to the D.A. to the police and everyone in that community. They decided it was abuse from the start and they weren’t going back.”
Likening the trial to a John Grisham novel where injustice after injustice occurs, Shamblin said all she, the Smiths and others supporting them can do is pray that an appeal can be heard and that the couple will one day be released from prison.
A Web site proclaiming the Smiths’ innocence and soliciting funds to support further defense personnel is currently under construction and should be up within days, said Shamblin, who vows to fight this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
“We’re trying our best to encourage them as much as we can. They just need prayers,” Shamblin told BlackAmericaWeb.com, adding that she and other supporters were hesitant to speak out during the trial for fear such talk would jeopardize the Smiths’ chances of a fair trial. But that tactic proved futile, Shamblin said.
“I know there are more than a few innocent people who are behind bars, but the Smiths are truly undeserving of this outcome,” Shamblin said. “Now is the time to shout this from the rooftop.”
