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Franklin mom gets 10 years in prison in fatal stabbing

Shannon Smith looks over at her parents, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence in Warren County Common Pleas Court. Smith was convicted for the fatal stabbing of Robert Takach II, the father of two of her three children.

Staff photo by Apryl Pilolli Shannon Smith looks over at her parents, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence in Warren County Common Pleas Court. Smith was convicted for the fatal stabbing of Robert Takach II, the father of two of her three children.

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Photos: Trial of Shannon Smith

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By Denise G. Callahan, Staff Writer Updated 8:07 AM Wednesday, March 3, 2010

LEBANON — Warren County Common Pleas Judge Robert Peeler, after hearing oral arguments on a motion for a new trial, sentenced convicted killer Shannon Smith to 10 years in prison.

Smith, 24, of Franklin, was convicted Jan. 28 of voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence following a four-day jury trial in the Jan. 29, 2009, fatal stabbing of Robert Takach, II, the father of two of her three small children.

Smith sat through the two-hour hearing silently sobbing at times with a wad of tissues in her clenched fist and her right leg bouncing up and down nervously.

Peeler declared her a “violent person” and observed while she will be able to attend her children’s happy events like prom, graduations and weddings, Takach won’t.

“You have shattered the lives of four generations of this family... It’s indescribable what happened here,” he said. “It is a tragedy for everyone in this room that is here on both sides.”

The jury, which deliberated nearly 11 hours before rendering its verdicts, found her not guilty of special felony murder.

Smith was pregnant with her third child by another man and had claimed self-defense in the stabbing that happened during the altercation in her Beam Drive apartment in Franklin.

Prior to sentencing her attorneys Mike Allen and Tom Longano argued that Smith’s self defense claims were “crippled” by Peeler’s decision to keep away from the jury most of the medical records from the Sojourner rehabilitation center in Hamilton.

Those records would have shown, Allen and Longano argued, that Takach was a violent man who abused drugs and alcohol, did not get along with anyone and had threatened Smith’s life previously. Peeler denied the motion for a new trial.

Takach’s mother Patricia Todd, at times stoically and at times tearfully, told Peeler her son was a good son and father and was the light of their lives. As a result of him witnessing the stabbing, she said her grandson, who is five, now requires therapy for post traumatic stress disorder and “believes it’s OK to stab someone if they aren’t nice to you.”

Meanwhile, Smith’s mother said that same boy, who gets to visit her five times a month, cries when he has to return to the Takach side of the family. She claims Takach beat her daughter. However, it came out in court that Smith had attacked Takach previously with a skillet, a butter knife and her car.

Both sides admitted that this was not a “match made in heaven,” as Assistant Prosecutor Teresa Hiett mentioned several times. She asked Peeler to impose the maximum 15-year sentence.

She pointed out that physical evidence brought out in the trial showed Smith stabbed her boyfriend in the heart, sending the blade in four-and-half inches and then washed the blade off to conceal her guilt.

“There are only two people who really know what happened,” she said. “And her version didn’t match the physical evidence... She lied to this court and she lied to the jury about what happened.”

Hiett said it was particularly egregious that Smith tried to blame the event on Takach by claiming self-defense, but then she compounded things by asking for a new trial.

Allen told the court Smith is a young mother, who has never been in trouble before — except for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge — and deserved no prison time, just community control. After the sentencing Allen said Smith will be appealing her conviction to 12th District Court of Appeals in Middletown.

Takach’s uncle Doug Mitchell after the sentencing said his nephew’s murder “pulled out a hole in my heart that can’t be filled,” and had Peeler given Smith community control,

“I’d be in cuffs right now,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.

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