Metro Atlanta
Metro Atlanta

Court upholds Cobb murder convictions

By Bill Rankin
Nov 8, 2010

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday upheld the murder convictions of a mother and father sentenced to life in prison for the child abuse death of their 8-year-old son.

A Cobb County jury found Sonya and Joseph Smith guilty in February 2007 of killing their son Josef. On the night of Oct. 8, 2003, police found the boy lying on the kitchen floor, unresponsive. He was pronounced dead the following day.

According to testimony, when Josef had disrupted a church service web cast the family was watching on the computer, Joseph Smith struck him repeatedly with a foot-long glue stick. Sonya Smith later continued to beat him, drawing blood, according to testimony. Josef was then ordered to climb into a wooden box, even though he complained he could not breathe. When he removed later he was unresponsive, prosecutors said.

ExploreHBO documentary The Way Down highlights Cobb County murder case

About the Author

Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.

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