Court upholds Cobb murder convictions

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.