TYARI SMITH JR. (and Mother) - 2 yo (2010)/ Convicted: Father; Tyari Smith Sr. - Chauvin LA

Truck driver kills fiancée, son, cops say
Published: Friday, January 8, 2010 at 12:52 p.m.

CHAUVIN — A Chauvin trucker gunned down his fiancée and their toddler son at their home Thursday before driving to Montegut, where he surrendered to SWAT team officers, authorities said.

Tyari Smith Sr., 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of shooting Maria Elizabeth Chavez, 27, and Tyari Smith Jr., 2, who were found dead at their house, 4864 La. 56, just south of the Smithridge Bridge.

A resident called the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office about 1:20 p.m. to report the deaths, Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois said. The resident, whose name was not provided by authorities, told deputies Smith said he shot his fiancée and son before driving away.

Smith left in his 2004 GMC Yukon, which deputies found on St. Matt Street in Montegut, about a mile away, Bourgeois said. Smith was inside a house in the 100 block of the street, where officers arrested him without incident about 3:40 p.m.

“It doesn't matter how long you train, you're never prepared for a 2-year-old to be the victim of a crime like that,” Bourgeois said. “When someone intentionally kills a 2-year-old, that's hard to swallow.”

Investigators said Chavez was upset with Smith and planned to move to California. Family said the couple of 15 years met there. Detectives said her plans to leave may have played a part in the shooting, but no clear motive has been established.

Smith is refusing to speak to detectives. His bond is set at $5 million.

“Apparently he didn't want her to leave,” Sheriff's Maj. Malcolm Wolfe said. “But what triggered that one moment, we don't know."

Smith also has two daughters, ages 5 and 7, who were at Upper Little Caillou Elementary during the shootings, relatives said. They are now with family, who gathered near Smith's home as deputies investigated the shooting.

Rain and cool temperatures kept them bundled beneath a carport, just behind a line of yellow tape, speculating on what occurred.

“Right now I just can't describe how I feel. I'm just shocked,” said Lisha Price, 49, Smith's mother. “He was humble. A good spirit. I don't know what overcame him.”

‘MENTAL BREAKDOWN'
Residents in houses and trailers surrounding Smith's home never heard shots or saw signs of a disturbance, they said. Many learned of the slayings only when deputies arrived, their cruiser lights flashing.

Smith left the house calmly earlier that afternoon and boarded his truck, neighbors said.

He and Chavez planned to marry soon, relatives said. In the past two months, Smith's behavior began changing. His social, humorous personality shifted into a quieter, troubled one.

Smith began rambling in his speech, both to himself and others, said Robin Smith, 48, his aunt. He claimed someone was after him. She knows of no one seeking to harm her nephew.

“I don't know what happened,” Robin Smith said. “If he had a mental breakdown or not.”

Relatives approached him multiple times asking him to get help. On Sunday they attended church and, spending time together afterward, the family asked Smith to explain what seemed to bother him.

Smith replied it was “something he was going to have to work out on his own,” Robin Smith said.

Other times he denied anything was wrong.

“We knew something was,” his aunt said.

In March 2008, deputies said Smith fired a gun at relatives outside his home during an argument. The three family members were allegedly seated in a car in his driveway following an argument over discarded scrap metal at the home.

Smith denied the shooting, deputies said, but a gun and spent casings were found at the scene. He was charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder and illegal use of a weapon.

Prosecutors found that Smith fired into the air, never taking aim at a relative, Terrebonne Parish First Assistant District Attorney Carlos Lazarus said.

Relatives asked that the charges be dropped, Lazarus said. Smith pleaded guilty to illegal discharge of a weapon.

Smith was released from jail in July 2008.

“We were distraught,” Robin Smith said over the incident. “Back then, and now too.”

THE WEST, THEN BACK
Smith is a Chauvin native. As a young man he moved to Compton, Calif., a city south of Los Angeles “for adventure,” his mother said.

There he met Chavez and had their first daughter, Tatyana. The couple returned to Louisiana about seven years ago to be close to his family. They moved first to Slidell, where Smith worked for a lumber company. Relatives persuaded him to return home to drive in his grandfather's business, Smith Trucking Co., his mother said.

The couple had a second daughter, Sariah, and then their son. Smith worked while Chavez cared for the children. Price lived with the couple.

“He loved his children,” Price said. “And I'm certain he loved his fiancée.”

Smith had trouble with the law recently, but Price declined to discuss it in detail.

“He was coping with it,” she said.

Price said her son seemed “distraught” lately. He rebuffed her attempts to talk about it.

“He just said he was hurt about something, and I can't pinpoint what he hurt about,” she said.

Thursday afternoon she ate lunch with the children at Upper Little Caillou Elementary, Price said. She returned home, where her son worked with two piles of scrap metal in the front yard. She asked to use his truck to run errands, but he asked her to take another vehicle because he had something to do.

Officers are unsure of the relationship between Smith and residents of the St. Matt Street home where they found him. He had friends on the street.

Smith drove up and down the street several times before officers arrived as if he were looking for something, said Desmond Vanburen, 20, a St. Matt Street resident. He watched his friend get arrested.

“All I could do is watch,” he said.

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20100108/ARTICLES/100109514?p=1&tc=pg

Murder trial halted by surprise witness

By Eric Heisig, Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 12:38 a.m.

The trial of a Chauvin man facing life in prison for allegedly killing his girlfriend and daughter was halted Friday after a new witness who may help seal the deal for the prosecution came forward.

Tyari Smith Sr., 34, is charged with first-degree murder in the January 2010 deaths of Maria Chavez, 26, and Tyari Smith Jr., 2. The two were found shot to death in the family's home at La. 56 near the Smithridge Bridge. Smith killed the pair after Chavez threatened to leave him and move with their child to California, where she had relatives, police said at the time.

If convicted, Smith faces a mandatory life prison sentence, as prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty out of deference to the family's wishes.

Testimony for the trial started Wednesday. On Friday, the first witness was to be Lee Outley, Smith's great-uncle and reported confidant the day of the shootings. However, proceedings were halted for the weekend after Danny Verret, a current Terrebonne sheriff's trusty and inmate told Sheriff's Capt. David LeBoeuf Friday morning that Smith told him about the shootings while they were in the same dorm at the Terrebonne Parish jail.

Verret, 32, is serving a seven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to an aggravated second-degree battery charge for stabbing 38-year-old Donovan Ledet in January 2010. Verrett was originally charged with attempted second-degree murder but pleaded to a lesser charge after a deal was cut with Assistant District Attorney Chris Erny, who is also prosecuting Smith. He currently works as a cook at the Sheriff's Office's motor pool at Capital Boulevard in Houma.

On Friday morning, Erny said several times that he had no knowledge of Verret's conversations with Smith, even though Verret said in a recorded interview with Sheriff's Capt. Dawn Foret that he had told Erny and his attorney, Bradley Cinnater, in advance of his guilty plea. However, he also said in the interview that his memory was unclear and that he may in fact have not told the prosecutor.

The interview, recorded Friday morning, was played in the courtrooms for attorneys, members of Smith's family and onlookers, though the jury was not present. In the video, Verret said he and Smith did not share a cell but shared the same common area in the jail at the time.

“A lot of guys would come to me,” Verret says on the recording, adding that inmates may have thought he was “educated.”

Verret says between January and February 2010, Smith told him he shot his girlfriend of more than 10 years on purpose but did not mean to kill his son. Instead, he said a bullet went through Chavez's body and then hit Tyari Jr. He then threw the gun into a drainage canal, Verret said Smith told him.

Smith also claimed he killed Chavez because her family had tried to kill him, namely by tampering with a tire gauge on his 18-wheeler, Verret said. They did it “so it would blow up in his face.”

The trusty said he confided in LeBoeuf Friday morning after overhearing sheriff's evidence custodian Edgar Authement talk about the case over a cup of coffee.

“I thought it was the right thing to do. I'm trying to change my life, I guess,” Verret says in the interview. He also said shortly after their conversations, Smith was moved to another dorm, as being labeled a child killer can be a dangerous situation in Ashland.

“Well, you don't mess with kids,” Verret says on the video.

Smith's attorney, Bernard Levy, strongly urged Judge Randy Bethancourt to not allow Verret to testify, saying there are numerous statements Verret could make that would be next to impossible to rebuke without more time. He also said he has prepared the defense in anticipation only of Outley's testimony, and not of the word of another supposed confidant.

Levy said he can get ready, but “it won't be within the weekend.”

However, Bethancourt said he will allow the trusty to testify Monday, and said he is giving Levy and his staff the weekend to prepare for cross examination. He also added that if Smith had confessed to Verret, Smith would know what was said and it shouldn't be a bit surprise.

The trial will resume Monday morning. Bethancourt told the jury he expects it to finish on Tuesday.

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20120421/ARTICLES/120429923?p=1&tc=pg

Chauvin man found guilty of double murder

By Eric Heisig, Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 9:50 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 7:51 a.m.

A Chauvin man is guilty of murdering his longtime girlfriend and toddler son, a Terrebonne jury determined Tuesday.

Tyari Smith Sr., 34, was arrested in January 2010 for shooting Maria Chavez, 26, and Tyari Smith Jr., 2, multiple times, police said at the time. The pair were found dead in the bedroom of their home on La. 56 near the Smithridge Bridge with a mattress covering their bodies.

Testimony for the trial began on April 18 and lasted until Tuesday morning. On Tuesday evening, Smith was found guilty of two counts first-degree murder after a jury deliberated for about 90 minutes.

“I thought the jury got it right,” said Assistant District Attorney Chris Erny, who prosecuted the case. “There was overwhelming evidence, and they got it right.”

Smith now faces mandatory life in prison for both counts and will be sentenced in July by Judge Randy Bethancourt.

The death penalty, a possibility in all first-degree murder cases, was taken off the table by prosecutors out of deference to the victims' family's wishes. He is currently incarcerated in the Terrebonne Parish jail, serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to drug charges in St. Tammany Parish.

As the verdict was read, Smith's mother, Lisha Price, hung her head. Smith was soon handcuffed by a bailiff and sat there for several minutes, waiting for the proceedings to end. With his hands shackled behind his back, his attorney's assistant wiped tears away from the defendant's eyes with a handkerchief.

“He's disappointed, I'm disappointed and his family's disappointed,” said Bernard Levy, Smith's attorney.

Read More: http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20120424/articles/120429780