Louisa County resident Forrest M. Smythers Jr. was sentenced Monday to life plus eight years in prison for fatally shooting his wife in January after an argument over Christmas lights.
Judge Timothy K. San-ner of Louisa Circuit Court upheld a jury’s recommended sentence of life plus three years for first-degree murder and felonious use of a firearm in the Jan. 11 slaying of Dawn Smythers in the couple’s home in the Holly Grove area.
The judge then added a mandatory five-year sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon.
The judge said he saw no reason to alter the jury’s recommend punishment. After a two-day trial, jurors found Smythers guilty Sept. 9.
State sentencing guidelines called for a low of 41 years in prison to a high of 68 years.
Smythers, 54, presented no mitigating evidence during Monday’s sentencing hearing and said nothing when asked by the judge if he had any comment to make, said Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire, who prosecuted the case with Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Garrett.
“Unfortunately, along with joy and happiness, the Christmas season is routinely accompanied by a rise in domestic violence,” Garrett said in a statement Monday. “Here, a family’s Christmas memories are marred forever. I hope and pray that this holiday season, people will stop and think before they act on fleeting emotions.”
According to evidence, Dawn Smythers was killed by a single shot from a .22-caliber rifle that struck almost right between her eyes, McGuire said.
Smythers called his father at a Charlottesville nursing home that day and said he was contemplating suicide or running away because he had just shot his wife, authorities said. His father told a nurse, who notified police at 8:11 p.m.
Authorities found Dawn Smythers’ body on a sofa in the living room of the couple’s house. Forrest Smythers was sitting in a chair, cradling the rifle.
Smythers initially told investigators that he had wanted to take down their Christmas lights, but that his wife had opposed the idea, McGuire said. But the defendant denied on the witness stand Sept. 8, the first day of his trial, that they had been arguing about Christmas lights.
Smythers told the court that his wife had struck him in the head with a miniature statue of an angel and that she had tried to grab his rifle from him as he headed outside to go target shooting, causing the gun to go off, McGuire said. Investigators found such a statue with Forrest Smythers’ blood on it.
However, prosecutors said Smythers fired the rifle from across the room, noting that investigators found the shell casing about 15 feet from the body. A shell casing from such a rifle typically would eject about 4 feet, a Louisa investigator testified.
The shell casing was found about 4 feet from where Forrest Smythers was sitting when deputies arrived.
Smythers and his wife had been married 25 years, McGuire said.
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