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Jury: Aunt guilty of kidnapping
by Kevin Murphy, Special to the Times · News · August 07, 2014
MADISON, Wis. – A Colorado woman accused of taking her newborn nephew and hiding him for nearly 30 hours at a West Branch gas station in February was found guilty July 31 of kidnapping a minor.
After a four-day trial, federal jurors needed less than three hours to convict Kristen R. Smith, of Aurora, Colo., of kidnapping five-day-old Kayden Powell from her half-sister, Brianna Marshall, on Feb. 6, a day after Kayden was brought home from the hospital.
Smith, 31, faces 25 years to life in prison at her Oct. 27 sentencing.
Smith maintained that before she left Beloit, Wis., for Aurora, she received a last-minute request from Bruce Powell, the infant’s father, to take Kayden with her and Powell and Marshall would later join them to a start a new life.
Powell, who was groggy and stumbled when Smith was preparing to leave at 2 a.m., said he would tell Marshall that Smith was taking the baby with her, Smith testified.
Powell took the witness to describe Smith’s brief visit to Beloit, but was never asked by the prosecutors or Smith’s attorney to confirm or deny Smith’s statement.
Both Marshall and Powell were unhappy living with Marshall’s relatives and had recently accepted Smith’s invitation to join her in Aurora, a Denver suburb, Smith testified.
Smith also testified that a few hours into her trip, she was confused when a panicked Marshall called her to say her baby was missing.
Beloit police contacted Smith by cell phone and asked her to stop immediately and allow her vehicle to be searched. Smith stopped at a BP gas station in West Branch, wrapped the baby in a blanket and put him in a plastic tote box outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures.
Smith then drove to a nearby Kum & Go gas station where she flagged down West Branch Police Officer Alex Koch.
Koch testified that Smith said she knew nothing about a missing baby and let him search her vehicle to confirm it.
A second officer arrived and learned that Smith had an outstanding arrest warrant from Texas and took Smith into custody.
Smith continued to deny her involvement in Kayden’s disappearance during a lengthy interrogation by FBI agents. Meanwhile, West Branch police and other law enforcement agencies kept searching for the baby. Police Chief Mike Horihan found him the following morning in the tote with the lid snapped shut behind the BP station.
West Branch paramedic Sandy Heick also testified that she removed Kayden from the tote and found his condition to be good despite being outdoors for an extended period.
Smith panicked and hid the baby and then continued to panic when she lied to authorities about not knowing Kayden’s whereabouts, her attorney Matthew Noel told jurors Thursday in closing arguments.
“It was not the best way to handle this situation,” said Noel, “but there was no ill intent on my client’s behalf … She wanted to return to Beloit with the baby.”
Noel also said Smith would not benefit from taking the baby as “she already had four children of her own and a step-child.”
Federal prosecutors told jurors that Smith was a chronic liar and manipulator and only rekindled a relationship with Marshall after learning in June 2013 that Marshall was pregnant.
Smith concocted a fake pregnancy scheme that included posting on her Facebook page sonograms she downloaded from the internet, bought a prosthetic pregnancy “belly” and filled out an application for a birth certificate listing “Kaysin Michael Smith” as the name of the child, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Sinnott.
“She lied about the baby…She lied to suit her purposes. She to lied to Brianna and Bruce that they would be welcomed out in Colorado … and instead she crept into their bedroom while they were asleep to take their baby,” Sinnott said.
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