LITTLE ROCK -- Lawyers for a Little Rock man accused of killing his stepmother, the widow of the late Circuit Judge Vann Smith, said Thursday they will challenge a doctor's finding that 35-year-old Logan Speer Smith is not mentally ill.
Logan Smith is charged with capital murder in the August death of 71-year-old Cathy Cochran Smith in her home in The Heights. Logan Smith has a long history of mental issues and he underwent a mental examination at the request of his lawyers.
The findings by clinical psychologist Donala Jordan of Jordan Consulting and Psychological Services of Fort Smith, were submitted to Circuit Judge Karen Whatley last month. Jordan concluded that Smith is not mentally ill, with his issues stemming from chronic marijuana use.
According to Jordan's 13-page report, Smith said that he first tried marijuana at age 9 then started regularly smoking it at age 11, also sometimes supporting himself by selling it. Calling himself "a real pothead," Smith said he's tried LSD, hydrocodone and psilocybin mushrooms, among other drugs, usually as an alternative to marijuana, which is his drug of choice.
"I've used a lot of them but I've never used no needles before. I've experimented with everything," Smith told the doctor, according to the report. "Every time I quit I end up doing other drugs and it would give me psychosis.
"Like, marijuana, it's a lifestyle thing. I love marijuana for sure," he told Jordan. "I just wanna go live in the mountains, man. You know drugs are fun. I'm not saying they're the cure but they sure cured a lot for me when I was younger. And now that marijuana is legal and I'm in jail, I just don't know what to think about it."
Thursday, Smith's public defender, Leslie Borgognoni, said she'll be hiring a doctor to examine Smith to challenge Jordan's conclusions. A competency hearing has been set for Aug. 31.
Authorities say Cathy Smith was stabbed, beaten and strangled during the lunchtime attack. Detectives collected a steak knife from the sink in the kitchen, where they also found bloody shoe prints.
She had been able to call 911 and report that Logan Smith was attacking her but died on her living room floor before help arrived. Some of her last words were, "Why are you doing this to me, Logan? I don't understand," arrest reports show.
Logan Smith, who lived about 2 miles away, was arrested on the street about a block from the Lombardy Lane residence. Smith's shoes looked bloody but when questioned by police, he said he did not know what investigators were talking about, arrest reports show. He's been jailed ever since.
Logan Smith is Vann Smith's adopted son from his first marriage. Vann Smith married Cathy Smith in 2002 when Logan Smith was 14. Vann Smith retired in 2020 after 31 years as a Pulaski County circuit judge and died in January 2022, about a week after he turned 71.
Logan Smith is also facing residential burglary charges over allegations that he broke into a neighbor's apartment at the six-unit building he lived in at 803 N. Van Buren St. in July, about a week before the murder.
According to arrest reports, officers called to the scene found the front door had been smashed in, with another neighbor, 27-year-old Emily Austin, reporting that she saw a man she recognized as an apartment tenant beating on the door with a rock about the size of his head before going inside and coming back carrying a chair before walking out of sight. She was later able to identify the man as Smith.
Smith told investigators he didn't know what had happened to his neighbor's door, stating that he was bipolar and had not taken his medication recently. Police sent him to the hospital for a mental evaluation.
Smith's neighbor, 35-year-old Paul Degarmo, said he got home from work that day to find his front door broken with trash strewn across the entrance. He said he had cleared most of his valuables from the residence and gone to stay with friends before police contacted him about the break-in. When he got back to his apartment, he said he found his TV had been broken and a folding chair was missing.
Court records show Vann Smith tried to have Logan Smith committed in August 2021, about a year before the murder, reporting how Logan Smith had just cut him with a blade and also threatened to kill a cousin.
"He is out of control. He is worse today. He has mood swings," Vann Smith stated in his commitment petition, describing how the younger man had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. "He is not taking any medications for this illness. He is very agitated, threatening, aggressive and violent."
Logan Smith was taken into custody two days later at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, but avoided a commitment by voluntarily seeking treatment. No charges were filed in the cutting episode but Logan Smith told Jordan, the psychologist, that he spent two months in the hospital.
"He was weirding me out so I cut his face with a knife," he said. "I said I wanted to live in a van and be homeless, and he wouldn't let me, and I just got tired of seeing a dude," the examination report states.