MARIETTA, Ga. Feb 6, 2007 (AP)— A couple whose church supports corporal punishment locked their 8-year-old son in a box, forced him to spend hours in a closet and beat the boy, who died in 2003, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
Josef Smith died at a children's hospital after paramedics were called to the family's home in Mableton, 12 miles northwest of Atlanta.
His parents, Joseph and Sonya Smith, were charged in June with murder, cruelty to children, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Testimony in their trial was to begin Wednesday.
"Josef's body will tell you the story of what happened to him," prosecutor Eleanor Dixon told jurors in opening remarks.
"There was beating after beating after beating, and then he died," Dixon said.
Defense attorney Manny Arora cautioned jurors that they would see photographs depicting horrible injuries but said those injuries did not cause the boy's death. Arora said he would show that the medical examiner did not perform tests that would have cleared his clients.
The Smiths are members of the Franklin, Tenn.-based Remnant Fellowship Church, which grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986. Authorities raided the church in June 2004 as part of the investigation of Josef Smith's death, but church officials have not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.
Former Remnant members have said church teachings on discipline include discussion of corporal punishment. Shamblin has said the church leaves discipline to parents and believes in spankings as a last resort.
Arora said there was no DNA evidence to prove the boy was locked inside the wooden box Dixon mentioned. Arora also said the closet that prosecutors accused the parents of locking the boy in had no wall to prevent him from going into his bedroom, because Joseph Smith had been renovating the house.
