GRENADA – A 25-year old woman from Grenada has been sentenced to life in prison for killing her 23-month old son earlier this year. Latondrea Neshay Smith plead guilty to the lesser charge of murder for the death of her young son, Jeremiah.
Smith was initially charged with capital murder after she told police the child drowned in the bathtub.
Smith was arrested on Feb. 25, after investigators found inconsistencies in her story, and after an autopsy report revealed that Jeremiah died due to blunt force trauma to his entire body, and not drowning as originally believed.
Smith first called police to her home on Jan. 11 and reported that Jeremiah wasn’t breathing. Smith said she put him in the bathtub, left the room and when she returned he was lying face up in the water.
When investigators arrived, they found Jeremiah on the floor, naked, bruised and unresponsive. Emergency personnel at Grenada Lake Medical Center worked for two hours to revive him.
Captain James Russell Carver, Chief Investigator with the Grenada Police Department, said some of the bruises on Jeremiah were old, but many had been made within a 24-hour period.
An investigation was launched, and Smith, who had already served three years in jail for credit card fraud, was arrested for Jeremiah’s murder.
Her initial bond was set at $500,000.
At the time of her arrest, Captain Carver also said Smith was pregnant, and once it was born, that child and Smith’s other child were taken into the custody of the Department of Human Services.
A third child lives with its biological father.
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