Judge finds teen guilty of capital murder

Read Xavier Pinckney's confession here.

Jean Smith didn’t usually wake up when her husband Rick left their bedroom in the morning to go to work.

But on Dec. 19, she did.

“She just looked at me and said this is going to be a great day,” Rick Smith recalled Monday.

Those were the last words she ever spoke to him.

Later that day Jean Smith, 39, and her 19-year-old son James were shot and killed in their Dale City home by a teen prosecutors described as “a neighborhood thief.”

After a non-jury trial Monday, Prince William Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O’Brien found Xavier Jamaal Pinckney, 18, guilty of robbery, two counts of capital murder and three counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony for the double homicide.

“This case represents perhaps a family’s worst nightmare,” Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert said in his closing argument.

In a written confession entered into evidence during the trial, Pinckney said he broke into the Smiths’ house on Langford Court that day, looking for things to steal.

He said he entered the house through a window, and took a handgun and rifle he found in the master bedroom.

In his confession, Pinckney said he didn’t think anyone was home and when he saw Jim asleep on the couch, he panicked.

“I kicked something. ... I woke him up and out of reaction I had pulled the trigger,” he wrote.

Prosecutors said they don’t know whether or not Jim Smith woke up before he was shot, but the evidence showed that he was shot in the head at very close range.

In his confession Pinckney wrote that he then ran upstairs and saw Jean Smith pulling into the driveway.

He said he left the house, but then realized he left his jacket behind.

Jean Smith had just found her son’s body and was trying to use a phone to call for help, prosecutors said.

“At this time she had seen me with the gun I know she recognized me and while I was thinking how am I going to get out of this she moves toward me and I shot her out of reaction,” Pinckney wrote in his confession.

Pinckney said he then took several other items, including a laptop and cell phone and left the house.

Defense attorneys Mark Williams and Mark Crossland agreed that the evidence showed Pinckney shot the Smiths, but argued that the crime wasn’t capital murder. Williams argued that the murder of Jim Smith was second-degree murder and that of Jean Smith was first-degree murder.

During the trial, Connor Smith, Jim Smith’s younger brother and Jean Smith’s son, testified about finding his brother dead on the couch.

Connor, 17, said he came home from school and saw Jim laying on the couch.

He thought his brother was sleeping and eventually went to wake him up, he said.

“I saw a lot of blood coming mostly from his head,” Connor said.

He then called for help.

“I tried to call my mom instinctively and I heard her ringtone,” Connor said, adding that he then saw his mother’s purse and cell phone in the house.

He said he looked for his mother, but didn’t find her.

When paramedics arrived they pronounced Jim Smith dead and after searching the house, found Jean Smith dead of a gunshot wound to the ear in her bedroom.

A witness later reported seeing someone matching Pinckney’s description in the neighborhood around the time of the shootings.

Police questioned Pinckney in a 10-hour interview, during which he wrote a statement confessing to the crimes.

The judge found Pinckney not guilty of two felony charges, alleging that he broke into the house with the intent to kill someone.

The judge also dismissed two capital murder charges and two first-degree murder charges that offered different theories of how the crime happened.

The judge ruled that Pinckney could not be convicted of more than one murder charge for a single murder.

Pinckney will be sentenced Feb. 5. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison for the capital murder convictions.

Because Pinckney was a juvenile at the time of the murders, he could not face the death penalty.

After the trial, Rick Smith said the judge’s verdict is a relief to the family.

“This has been a very difficult nine and a half months and having this moment weighing over us this whole time has made it that much more difficult,” Rick Smith said.

“The commonwealth had a number of theories and the judge could only find him guilty of one set of the circumstances,” Ebert said.

Rick Smith said he and his family are glad to have justice for Jean and Jim.

“This was obviously a tremendous step for us to see some kind of justice for Jeannie and Jim,” he said. “With respect to closure, I’m not sure. They’re going to be with us for the rest of our lives. They were and will be two of the most amazing people I ever met.”

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.