Judge allows 4-year-old’s utterances in mother's murder trial

Victim’s family members stage protest outside courthouse; trial to start Dec. 7.

Staff photo Shannon Smith of Franklin appears with attorney Mike Allen during her arraignment June 19 in Warren County Common Pleas Court.

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By Ed Richter, Staff Writer Updated 12:50 AM Friday, November 20, 2009

LEBANON — Excited utterances made to police by the 4-year-old son of a Franklin woman accused of stabbing her children’s father to death earlier this year will be allowed as evidence at trial.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys representing Shannon Smith, 23, argued over several motions Thursday, Nov. 19, during an evidentiary hearing before Warren County Common Pleas Judge Robert Peeler.

Peeler ruled that prosecutors should disclose information being sought by the defense team, and allowed excited utterances made to police by Smith’s 4-year-old son and another person into evidence. He also ruled that prosecutors provide more information in the bill of particulars against Smith.

Peeler took under advisement a defense motion to allow an expert witness testify about choke holds.

Smith was in court but did not speak during the hearing. She and several family members sat in the courtroom’s gallery behind the defense table.

On the other side of the courtroom, family and friends of the victim, Robert Takach II, filled nearly every seat.

Outside the courthouse, more than a dozen other supporters of the Takach family held a vigil with signs along the sidewalk.

After the hearing, Smith and her family and friends walked down the gauntlet of Takach supporters to get to their cars in the parking lot. They have held a vigil each time Smith has appeared in court.

A three-day trial is slated to begin at 9 a.m. Dec. 7 for Smith, who is free on a $100,000 bond.

She was indicted in May on charges of special felony murder, voluntary manslaughter, both first-degree felonies, and for tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony.

She is accused of using a steak knife to stab Takach, 25, in the upper chest at their Beam Drive apartment during a Jan. 29 domestic dispute.

Takach was found bleeding in a hallway after neighbors called 911. He was taken to Atrium Medical Center in Middletown where he died two hours later.

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4504 or erichter@coxohio.com.

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