A North Carolina prosecutor has said she will seek the death penalty for a woman charged with killing her adopted 5-year-old son.
Kimberly Monique Smith, 37, is charged with first-degree murder in the June 6, 2021 death of 5-year-old Kendall Marquise Smith. She is also charged with felony intentional child abuse, inflicting serious bodily injury in connection to Kendall’s 6-year-old brother, according to court records.
Assistant District Attorney Belinda Foster said in Forsyth Superior Court that she wanted to have the case declared capital, describing the boy’s death as “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
A judge ordered that Smith be assigned a second attorney, as required under state law.
Winston-Salem police officers went to Kimberly Smith’s home at 9:49 p.m. on June 6, along with emergency-medical technicians, after getting a 911 call about an unresponsive child. The officer found Smith’s friend performing CPR on Kendall in a bedroom. The boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
An autopsy determined that the boy died from blunt-force trauma to the back of the head, which caused his brain to swell and led to a lack of oxygen, according to search warrants.
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