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From IBThis has gone on long enough 1 hope for a speedy execution, she said.When asked about Smith's calm reaction to the sentence, she said she considered it “insulting to her family ... he still hasn't shown remorse.According to court testimony and records, Smith and another man had escaped from a minimum-security prison in Kansas and fled to Texas before killing Hudson.They robbed a home in Houston and obtained the .357 Magnum revolver used in the murder and a 1978 Fbrd van.Driving the van across Texas, the two escapees stopped at a Gulf gas station in Bakersfield and fled without paying for $22.50 of gasoline, records show.The Pecos County Sheriff's Department was called and gave chase to the two convicts. When Smith reftised to pull over. Hudson attempted to pass the van in order to set up a roadblock down the road.While Hudson was passing the van. Smith stuck the gun out the window and fired three times. One of the bullets tore through Hudson and killed him in the police cruiser.The stolen van was torched near a Pecos County cotton farm and a white tractor-trailerwas stolenPolice began chasing the tractor-trailer when it drove up to a police roadblock and did a U-turn to avoid the checkpoint.After a 44-mile high-speed chase, officersopened fire on the vehicle from a helicopter and captured the two men.Underwood tried to convince jurors that Smith did not set out to kill Hudson, but was a scared young man who did not want to return toprison The defense lawyer said he fired the .357Magnum at Hudson's police cruiser to stop thevehicle and the pursuit, not to kill anyone.Smith's mother and sister, who traveled from Kansas to hear the verdict, said they are convinced Smith did not mean to kill anyone “He was wrong. He done wrong, but he doesn't need to be killed, said Norma Rich, the mother of the convicted man.“He doesn’t lie. I taught him to tell the truth. He wasn't trying to kill that policeman — he was trying to stop his car, she said.Rich and Smith's sister, Linda Forbes, approached Hudson-Simmons while the jury was deliberating and apologized for what their relative did to her family and her father.After the sentence was handed down, the twowomen said they were going to go over to the Pecos County Jail and visit Smith before returning to Kansas.Hudson-Simmons said she was “going home” to Kerrville now that the trial was over.“I’d really like to thank District Attorney Ori White and his staff and all the law enforcement officers from Pecos and Reeves and Midland and Ector (counties) and the Customs agents and especially Sheriff Bruce Wilson and his wife Martha for all their support through the years since my father’s murder,” she said. White said he was pleased the jury chose thedeath penalty, but called his job “very sobering.”“It’s never pleasant when a man’s life is the price for his misdeeds, but I do know this: Society will be safer if Charles Edward Smith is put to death,” White said.According to the Texas Department ofCriminal Justice there were 457 inmates on death row before Smith’s sentence was handeddown. ’ _ __He was sentenced to be killed by a lethal injection of sodium thiopental. No date for the execution was set by Jones on Thursday.
Newspaper Details
Odessa American
Odessa, Texas, US
Fri, Nov 19, 1999
Page 12
Full Page
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Anonymous
NA, NA 07 Jun 2023
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