'I feel as if (he) did kill me': Woman speaks in sentencing about ex-boyfriend who tried to kill her twice
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She should be dead.
A Milwaukee woman told her longtime boyfriend, Cory D. Smith, that, after years together, she was fed up with his physical and emotional abuse. She also didn’t want the daughter they shared to be subjected to it, nor did she want the child to grow up thinking that kind of violence was normal.
Smith wouldn’t accept that, prosecutors said. So, he tried to kill her – twice.
The second attack left her in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the hip down.
Smith, 36, will spend the next 13 1/2 years in prison for hiring his uncle to kill his ex-girlfriend in 2020. He also was ordered to serve another 15 years behind bars for shooting her a year earlier in a failed attempt to kill her himself.
"I honestly feel as if Cory did kill me," she told Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca A. Kiefer during Smith's sentencing on Thursday. "The old me is dead and gone. I'm forced to live my life in a way I never imagined."
The Journal Sentinel does not typically publish the names of domestic violence victims without their permission.
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Smith and his ex-girlfriend were in a relationship for about 10 years and have a child together. Times were turbulent during much of that time, but Assistant District Attorney Nicolas J. Heitman said things escalated to physical violence, sometimes in the privacy of the home they share, other times carried out in front of family and friends.
But on Oct. 19, 2019, the situation escalated.
According to the criminal complaint, Smith showed up at his ex-girlfriend's mother's home and an altercation ensued, with Smith grabbing her by the hair.
"Either I'll beat her ass or I'll kill her," Smith is quoted as saying in the complaint.
Later that day, she drove somewhere with a friend and stopped at a red light at Fond du Lac Avenue and Silver Spring Road. Smith pulled up next to her, got out of his vehicle and walked up to the driver's window of her car with a black handgun, according to the complaint.
Smith fired two shots in the car, hitting her twice in the stomach. She was able to drive off as two more shots were fired. She found an ambulance and a police squad nearby and told them what happened.
Smith was arrested a few weeks after the shooting, and posted a $7,500 bond for his release on Nov. 21, 2019, online court records show. Authorities fitted him with a GPS monitoring device and placed restrictions on where he could go.
He was barred from contacting his ex-girlfriend and their daughter, though court records show he violated those orders several times.
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Cory Smith asks a relative to kill his former girlfriend
Prosecutors say Smith, his movements restricted, reached out to his uncle, Bryan O. Smith, and convinced him to kill his ex-girlfriend for him.
Wauwatosa police got a call on Nov. 14, 2020, about a shooting in the rear parking lot near North 94th and West Congress streets around 8:45 a.m. She had been shot again. Police recovered seven shell casings from the scene.
Video surveillance footage recorded from a camera at the complex showed a black Buick pull up behind her car. A man in a gray sweatshirt and dark pants is seen climbing out of the vehicle armed with a handgun and opening fire on her car.
She was hit and is now paralyzed. She uses a wheelchair to get around.
Bryan Smith, 47, pleaded guilty Sept. 27, 2021, to second-degree reckless injury and possession of a firearm by a felon. He is serving a 17 1/2-year prison term, but is now appealing, court records show.
Emotions run hot in court sentencing
In court, Cory Smith asserted his innocence, despite pleading guilty in April 2022. He claimed prosecutors were telling lies about him. After Thursday's hearing wrapped, additional deputies had to be called into the courtroom to quell yelling that ensued between Smith, his family and the victim's family.
"They all lying against me!" Smith could be heard yelling, as deputies surrounded him at the defense table. Smith had been shackled at the waist and his ankles were chained to the floor, preventing his movement.
Members of Smith's family also could be heard shouting "We love you" and "Stay strong" to Smith as they were led out of the courtroom.
Roughly a dozen deputies could be seen in the fifth floor hallway of the courthouse attempting to usher members of Smith's family to elevators leading them to exits.
There were no immediate reports of anyone being arrested.
Ex-girlfriend says she is surviving but 'living with trauma'
“I hate that the charges were attempted murder because in my eyes, he's a murderer," Smith's ex-girlfriend told the judge Thursday.
She said the shootings have forced her into a new way of life, one that involves struggle.
Simple tasks, such as playing with her daughter, present challenges. Many of them, chronicled by the scarring on her body, are physical.
All of them, at some levels, trigger emotion.
"I wake up daily with reminders of what happened to me, whether it's bullet holes, surgeries, pain or medication," she said. "I'm a 35-year-old woman who has to accept the fact of never being able to walk again, and deal with the trauma that someone so close to you would try to take your life twice."
Where to find help
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
The Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee operates a 24-hour confidential hotline at (414) 933-2722.
We Are Here Milwaukee provides information on culturally specific organizations at weareheremke.org.
The Asha Project, which provides culturally-specific services for African American women and others in Milwaukee, provides a crisis line from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 414-252-0075.
Diverse & Resilient, which serves the LGBTQ community, operates the "Room to Be Safe" resource line 414-856-5428 and has online resources at roomtobesafe.org.
The UMOS Latina Resource Center in Milwaukee offers bilingual, bicultural, domestic violence, sexual assault and anti-human trafficking supportive services and operates a 24-hour hotline at 414-389-6510.
The Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center offers culturally sensitive, trauma-informed services for those who have experienced domestic or sexual violence and can be reached at 414-383-9526.
Our Peaceful Home, which serves Muslim families and is a program of the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, operates a crisis line at 414-727-1090.
The Hmong American Women’s Association, which serves the Hmong and Southeast Asian community, has advocates available at 414-930-9352 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The Women’s Center in Waukesha has a 24-hour hotline at (262) 542-3828.
The Haus Of Peace in Jefferson County provides resources to women and children who have experienced homelessness or abuse and can be reached at (920) 285-7179.
End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin has a statewide directory of resources at endabusewi.org/get-help.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Emotions run hot at sentencing for man who tried to kill a woman twice
