Huckleberries Online

Smith Gets 10 Years For Abusing Kyra

Posted by DFO

March 14, 2009 1:31 a.m. • 11 comments

Item: Girl’s abuser gets 10-year sentence: Kyra Wine lost feet as result of injuries/Ralph Bartholdt, St. Maries Gazette Record

More Info: Blackened, dead flesh on toddler Kyra Wine’s hand and feet and black patches of scalp were among the injuries police saw during a welfare check at the child’s home near St. Maries last summer. Authorities still don’t know the cause of those injuries to the 3-year-old, which required amputation of her feet and a finger and months of recuperating at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. They do know that Charles W. Smith, one of two people charged in the abuse case, is going to prison for 10 years. Wine’s mother and Smith’s girlfriend, Christina L. Haynes, is awaiting arraignment.

Question: Is 10 years in prison an adequate penalty for what Charles W. Smith did to Kyra Wine. Should Kyra’s mother face a similar penalty, if she is found guilty?

11 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Frum Helen Back on March 14 at 10:20 a.m.
I feel life in prison would have been better so that he could never abuse a child again. And the same goes to the mother. Maybe justice will be dealt out in prison.
Digger on March 14 at 10:23 a.m.
This just proves that I’m right in my thinking that Idaho needs to adopt a law that provides that you must apply for a license to have kids.

This could be a separate board that reviews applications or it could be a legal procedure, but you’d have to prove intelligence, income and stability and then be granted permission to procreate.

My reasoning is simple - if you want to adopt kids you have to do this but if you’re a white trash single woman who don’t know who the daddy is you can pop em out and live off the government welfare system.

Anyone agree? Disagree?
florined on March 14 at 10:37 a.m.
Digger, Digger, Digger…please reread your pentultimate paragraph and ponder what it says about YOU. White trash? single women? don’t know who the father is? living on welfare? Sweet man, hie thee to a corner and spend an afternoon on introspection.
Rosalind on March 14 at 11:41 a.m.
I don’t think 10 years is enough. At a minimum, he should be sentenced to prison until the child he abused is 18 or older.
florined on March 14 at 1:01 p.m.
And I’m working hard to climb back up on my lofty perch and dispel my emotional reaction that calls for the guy to get only 5 years in prison, but just before he’s released to have his feet and fingers amputated, and during the last year of imprisonment, to have some of the boys use his skin as an ashtray. Sigh. I’m working on cleansing vengeance from my heart, honest.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 14 at 8:06 p.m.
Too low given the heinous circumstances, and outcomes, however, there was nothing the judge could do except made it the max with no parole, due to Idaho law, which needs to be amended to increase the maximum possible penalty for felony injury to a child, I’d say 20 years, at least.

Yes, the mother should be subject to similar jeopardy. I don’t understand why her trial has been so delayed.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.