Man arrested, charged with torture death in downtown apartment
SAN JOSE >> A man has been arrested and charged with torturing, stabbing and drowning another man in a downtown San Jose apartment building last week, according to police and court records.
Police and prosecutors say Sherman George Smith admitted to stabbing and tying the victim to a chair, then drowning him in a bathtub and using bleach to clean up the apartment.
Smith, 25, was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of 72-year-old David Liebman, according to a criminal complaint from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Jail records show he has been in custody at the Main Jail in San Jose since last Saturday.
The complaint also makes a special-circumstance claim that Smith’s alleged attack on Liebman “involved the infliction of torture.” The special-circumstance allegation raises the maximum penalty Smith faces to life in prison with the possibility of parole, if a jury were to affirm it alongside a guilty verdict.
Law enforcement sources told this news organization that Smith is the subject of police investigations in San Joaquin County involving at least one other killing. Additional details about any other cases with Smith were not immediately available.
Liebman’s body was discovered the morning of Sept. 6 in the bathtub of his unit at the Vintage Towers Apartments on East Santa Clara Street, across from City Hall. According to police, his daughter asked police to conduct a welfare check on him after she went to the apartment and got no answer.
Responding officers found Liebman stabbed and with a rope around his torso, and evidence that someone had tried to clean up the area with bleach, authorities said. According to a police investigative summary accompanying the criminal complaint, a trail of blood was seen leading from the living room to the bathroom.
The criminal complaint indicates that Liebman was killed sometime between Sept. 3 and Sept. 4, at least two days before police found him. Police stated that a security video showed Smith entering the apartment, going in and out of the unit over a 30-hour span, and leaving with grocery bags.
An autopsy determined Liebman’s three stab wounds did not kill him, suggesting that his killer drowned him after inflicting those wounds. A person who had been in the apartment told police that Smith was the last person seen with Liebman.
Police stated that investigators tracked down Smith on Sept. 9 and interviewed him, during which he reportedly said he was in the apartment, and that Liebman offered him drugs and asked for sex. According to the police summary, he also admitted to stabbing and tying up Liebman, and after several hours dragged him to the bathtub and drowned him.
During that same interview, Smith reportedly admitted to using bleach to clean up the apartment and discarding bloodied objects items in the trash, the latter of which police said was captured on security video.