Killer gran escapes life sentence

Whanganui woman who ‘carried heavy burden’ jailed for 12 years after fatally strangling teen granddaughter

AWhanganui woman who fatally strangled her teenage granddaughter has escaped a life sentence. Lorraine Smith, 59, used a necktie to strangle 13-year-old Kalis Manaia Smith, overpowering the teen as she tried to fight back, Crown prosecutor Michele Wilkinson-Smith told the High Court at Wellington yesterday.

According to the summary of facts, Smith and Kalis had been arguing and fighting on March 15, before Smith asked Kalis to go outside and help her close the windows of the sleepout.

She grabbed a necktie from the kitchen table and followed close behind Kalis, pulling the girl’s hood over her face before wrapping the tie around her throat and strangling her.

Wilkinson-Smith said the murder was, “sadly, clearly intentional”.

“This was a young child, she could have potentially been resuscitated,” Wilkinson-Smith said.

Smith called Kalis’ father and told him something had happened, then called 111 and admitted killing her granddaughter. She drove to the hospital

after taking an excessive amount of antidepressants.

Kalis’ father arrived at the house and found his daughter’s body. He began CPR, but Kalis had been left too long without help, and with the tie still tight around her neck.

Smith, who sat hunched over in the dock and sobbed throughout yesterday’s sentencing, pleaded guilty in May to murdering Kalis, a Whanganui City College student.

Defence lawyer Peter Brosnahan argued the circumstances of the case made it “manifestly unjust” for Smith to receive a life sentence.

He said Smith had suffered abuse from an early age, had troubles throughout her adult life, cared for a handicapped son, and for three grandchildren who had their own mental health issues.

“The compounding effect of all of that on this woman over the duration of her adult life means that she has suffered enormously,” he said.

“Every day she goes to sleep and every morning she wakes up living with what she’s done. She’s going to carry that, regardless of your honour’s decision today, for the rest of her days.”

Justice Francis Cooke spoke of Smith’s battles with severe mental health issues lifelong and said she suffered from “carer burnout”.

“Ms Smith has devoted her life to caring for her family, to the detriment of her own health and welfare . . . pressures mounted to the point that [she] has taken the life of one of those she committed her life to caring for.”

Family members described Smith as a devoted grandmother who turned herself inside out to help her loved ones.

Justice Cooke accepted she was suffering from severe emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion.

He said Smith was “overcome with remorse and suffers from profound grief”.

“You have had an extremely difficult life and have been required to carry a heavy burden. In the end the circumstances overwhelmed you.”

Justice Cooke agreed a life imprisonment sentence would be manifestly unjust, and instead imposed a total sentence of 12 years in prison, with a non parole period of six years.