Jury Calls for Death Penalty for Boy’s Killer

VENTURA —  A Ventura County jury recommended Tuesday that Gregory Scott Smith be sentenced to die in the gas chamber for kidnaping, raping and murdering an 8-year-old Northridge boy and setting his body on fire two years ago.

Smith, 23, a slender former Canoga Park day-care aide, sobbed loudly as Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren read the verdict, reached after two months of testimony and less than eight hours of deliberation.

Perren is scheduled to formally sentence Smith on Feb. 28. Though the judge is not bound by the jury’s declaration, defense attorney James M. Farley said he expects him to follow it.

The jurors showed no emotion as Smith’s cries were joined by the sobbing of his family and of the family of his victim, Paul Bailly.

Mary Bailly, the boy’s mother, clasped a hand to her mouth and shook as the jury was polled.

The defendant’s mother, Sherron Smith, clutched a handkerchief and wept on the shoulder of one of her daughters while his father, Marvin Smith, leaned back and covered his eyes with his hand.

As Perren dismissed the jurors, Smith collapsed against Farley before being led away to the Ventura County Jail.

John Fiecko was one of seven jurors who initially favored the death penalty, while two others were unsure and three others wanted a life sentence. The jury deliberated for an hour and a half Friday afternoon and reconvened Tuesday morning.

It was not until Tuesday that two of the three jurors decided on the death penalty, Fiecko said. And after lunch Tuesday, the last juror holding out for the life sentence finally gave in, he said.

“If the crime against Paul Bailly did not call for the death penalty, I don’t know what crime would,” said Fiecko, 27, a retail manager from Ventura.

Smith pleaded guilty last October to charges of kidnaping, child molestation, murder and arson in a legal move that his attorneys hoped would give them a better chance to save him from a death sentence.

Paul Bailly’s gagged, burned body was found in a brush fire near Simi Valley on March 23, 1990, several hours after his mother had dropped him off at a day-care program at Darby Avenue Elementary School in Northridge. Authorities said Smith set the boy’s body on fire, sparking the surrounding dry brush.

Two days later, police arrested Smith in the boy’s death. They later learned that school officials had fired Smith on March 6, 1990, after several children, including Paul, complained that he had disciplined them harshly.

Prosecutors had sought to prove that Smith killed Paul out of revenge and a penchant for sexual sadism. Smith sexually abused the boy before killing him, authorities said.

Smith’s attorneys argued that Smith should not be condemned to die because he suffers from mild mental retardation and brain damage.

After Tuesday’s verdict, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory Totten said, “I think the jury did the right thing. This was a terrible crime to a child.”

But Wiksell said of the jury, “I think in this case they probably said, OK, the guy’s defective, he’s the functional equivalent of a 10-year-old, but so what. That’s just not enough.”

Times staff writers Gary Gorman and Sherry Joe and correspondent Caitlin Rother contributed to this story.