WILLIAM SMITHSON
Last week, Smithson spoke to PGN during an hour-long interview at the George Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury, where he’s being housed before he’s relocated to a state prison.
Smithson, 44, spoke out about the September 2006 strangulation death of his coworker, Jason Shephard, inside Smithson’s Tanguy Road home in Thornbury Township, Delaware County.
Throughout the interview, Smithson maintained his innocence and said authorities haven’t looked closely enough at the actions of another man in his house that evening, F. Bruce Covington.
“Let’s not forget the fact that there were three people in my house that night,” Smithson said.
But Smithson stopped short of accusing Covington of murder.
Covington, 58, a Narberth attorney, couldn’t be reached for comment. Authorities say Covington had no direct involvement in Shephard’s death.
But he’s been charged with bringing drugs into Smithson’s home a few hours before Shephard’s death, including crystal methamphetamine, and with making false statements to police.
His attorney, Steven C. Leach, said he had no comment for this story and stated Covington remains free on bail on drug-related charges filed against him in both Montgomery and Delaware counties.
Smithson said he feels “awful” about the events of Sept. 18-19, 2006, which culminated in Shephard’s death, and that he thinks about the tragedy every day.
“I’ve wracked my brain thinking, ‘Was I so messed up on drugs that I did it and can’t remember?’” he said. “But I didn’t have a scratch on me, and the prosecution said Jason had defensive wounds. He was 23 years old, much bigger and stronger than me. And I didn’t have a mark on me.”
According to the prosecution, Smithson lured Shephard into his home, slipped him the “date-rape” drug gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), then strangled him to death in the course of trying to rape him.
Smithson scoffed at the scenario as “absurd.” He said any drugs he shared with Shephard — and any sex the two men had together — were consensual.
Erica G. Parham, a spokesperson for the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office, declined to respond specifically to Smithson’s comments.
Smithson said Shephard was bisexual, though his family from Shephard’s hometown of Cavalier, N.D., probably wouldn’t have known of his orientation.
He said Shephard willingly came to his home on Sept. 18, 2006, partly for the purpose of having sex — which the two men had also engaged in the day before, according to Smithson.
But Smithson said he had been tired that day, and the combination of drugs and alcohol caught up with him. He fell asleep before any sex took place between them, he claimed.
“The last thing I remember was Jason elbowing me and saying, ‘You’re passing out,’” Smithson recalled.
He said that when he woke up later that day, he discovered Shephard lying dead in his bedroom.
“I panicked; I thought he overdosed. All I knew was that I had a young man in my bedroom — dead — and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Smithson readily admitted he was guilty of misleading authorities — and Shephard’s family — into thinking that the victim was simply a missing person for two days.
“I take full responsibility for that,” Smithson said.
But he said prosecutors were blinded by the circumstances of the case and fixated on him as the killer without fully examining the actions of Covington.
“The prosecutors were more concerned about obtaining a conviction than uncovering the truth,” Smithson maintained.
Smithson said statements he made shortly after the incident regretting the calamity were misconstrued by officials as admissions of guilt — which he adamantly denies.
Two days after his death, Shephard’s body was discovered by police in Smithson’s basement, and Smithson was charged with a variety of offenses, including murder, kidnapping, administering intoxicants and abuse of a corpse.
In November, a jury convicted Smithson of first-degree murder but spared him the death sentence.
Smithson, upset with the guilty verdict, said he was grateful jurors spared him capital punishment.
He said jurors were influenced by a “homophobic” prosecution that emphasized aspects of his sexual orientation in a lurid and inflammatory manner.
“I was portrayed as a monster,” he said. “The jurors were shown sex toys and sex aids [from] my house, as if they had something to do with Jason’s death.”
Smithson also blasted prosecutors for questioning his character witnesses about their sexual orientation, apparently to diminish their credibility.
He said he regrets not testifying during the guilt phase of the trial, but said his attorneys advised him against doing so.
If he had testified, he said, prosecutors had threatened to call as a witness a jailhouse informer who claimed Smithson confessed to killing Shephard — with Covington’s help — during an argument with Shephard.
Smithson denied making such a confession, but said he preferred that the jurors not be exposed to the witness because of the possible negative connotations.
Smithson said his attorneys are planning to file an extensive appeal on his behalf in the hope the state Superior Court will grant him a new trial.
“I want a full investigation, and a fair trial based on the facts, not based on someone’s opinion of my sexual orientation,” he concluded. “I hope your readers can sympathize with me regarding the homophobic overtones and prejudices that were prevalent throughout my trial. I’ve got to remain positive and optimistic.”
Timothy Cwiek can be reached at (215) 625-8501 ext. 208.
The Court records show that William Smithson never intimated or confessed that he killed Jason. Anyone saying the opposite is acting like the DA and the Judge: they are using their own prejudgment instead of FACTS.
The same Court records show that the DA failed to present any evidence against William Smithson. The story about sexual fantasies and strangulation is an example of an overactive biased imagination, as was the showing of the ‘strap’ as if it was the murder weapon (but one which did not contain Jason’s DNA).
Those stories are just stories. THEY ARE NOT FACTS. Using them as facts is equivalent to telling lies to convict someone you don’t like, or because you need to convict someone.
Do you not know that God is listening to the lies you tell?
One thing is NOT a lie is this: There were TWO men who could have killed Jason. The other man was F Bruce Covington. The other man was not investigated or put on trial, despite the fact that it is the other man the one with a criminal profile (ask M. Fernandez).
William Smithson did not receive a fair trial, and as a result nobody knows who killed Jason.
This was evidenced by:
a) LACK OF A COMPLETE INVESTIGATION: Have Jason and Bill been the only ones in that house one would reasonably assume that the murderer could only have been Bill. But there was another man in the house at the time of the crime.
This man was F. Bruce Covington. This man drugged Smithson. Covington is drug-dealer who exchanged drugs for sex. Unlike Smithson, Covington has an emerging criminal profile, as he was involved in the drugging and raping of a gay man even before Smithson trial had started. The Court System showed either criminal negligence or a biased approach to the case when they decided not to pursue Covington.
b) JUDGE DOZOR ALLOWED INCOMPLETE, FALSE OR INVALID EVIDENCE IN THE TRIAL: The District Attorney, Mr. Lawrie, never presented other than speculations. He told the story of a gay monster infatuated with a handsome straight boy. In his story the gay monster entrapped and drugged the victim, to finally strangle Jason as the only way to avoid loosing his job. While this story is compelling, it is JUST A STORY. In a Court of Law one does not pass judgment based on stories. No proof of any of that story was presented. The record showed that Jason was ‘partying’ with Smithson voluntarily. They have spent time alone previously (there was ‘a fling’ going on). The record showed that Smithson did not plan to have a drug party that night, as the phone records showed that it was Covington who repeatedly called Smithson. The record also shows that there was no rape, attempted rape or any sign of sexual attack. The record shows Mr. Lawrie dangling a strap as if it was the murder weapon, but he had to confess that the victim’s DNA was not found in any part of the strap. When ‘spectral evidence’ is presented the Judge admits false evidence. Had Bill been provided with a FAIR Judge all the DA shenanigans would have been tossed out of Court. But Law being practiced in the Court of ‘the God of Delaware County’ is a corrupt affair.
c) THE COURT DID NOT ALLOW THE TESTIMONY OF A MAN THAT WAS IN THE HOUSE, BUT USED THE ‘TRASCRIBED’ TESTIMONY OF A MAN WHO WAS NOT EVEN IN THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME: The man in the house –THE MYSTERY MAN- held (and holds) key testimony about what really happened that night. He first lied to the police by stating that he was not in the house at the time of the murder. He only sent his lawyer to give another story when he felt the Police had evidence that put him in the house at the time of the crime. This man knows what happened, but allowing Covington to be part of the trial would have jeopardized the desired Murder conviction. This is why the Court protected Covington. Instead of demanding the testimony of the man that was in the house, they used the ‘written’ accounts of Dan Hall’s testimony to the police. What I mean by ‘written’ is this: the police took Dan’s testimony on a tape-recorder, they then ‘transcribed’ the said testimony into paper. Days later they showed the document to Dan and he –without any in depth scrutiny, and without the benefit of Counsel-signed it. Note: I have a few Academic Degrees and I used to get good grades all the time. I used tape-recorders all the time. I know how hard it is to capture verbatim all that is said into a tape recorder, even if you go over the tape a million times. Guess what: the Police lost the tape!
d) BILL WAS NOT ALLOWED TO TESTIFY. I witnessed this personally: Bill wanted to testify but his Lawyer decided otherwise. There were many reasons for this. At the time I personally thought this was a good idea because I thought (and I still think) the DA did not have a case. What was Bill going to say: he had been drugged by Covington and was HIGH AS A KITE that night, and incapable to forming coherent evaluations for days. That was a medical situation and not speculation. I still think Bill has no idea what happened that night. But I know this: Bill Smithson is incapable of hurting others. It is not just I who says this, but all his friends and coworkers say the same. Why would Bill want to rape Jason? Those who know him more intimately have told me that sexual violence was never part of Bill’s psyche. And as to the ‘alleged fantasies of raping’, I do not know where that story comes from of if Bill ever said that, but it seems many people have those thoughts (just read the original Peter Benchley's best-selling novel). All I know is this: F. Bruce Covington was accused of drugging and raping a man.
e) THE COURT VIOLATED THE PRINCIPLE ‘IN DUBIO PRO REO’. All the work by Mr. Lawrie’s amounted to speculations and stories. On top of this there was another person in the house who could have killed Jason (a more reasonable assumption than the DA’s whole house of cards). Judge Dozor denied any possibility for the Jury to even remotely consider this ‘elephant in the room’ of REASONABLE DOUBT. In doing so, the Judge manipulated the Jury and cajoled them into a single possible GUILY verdict BY DESIGN. More than just reasonable doubt existed in Bill’s trial, but he did not receive a FAIR one: otherwise the Jury would have come out with a Not Guilty verdict, because the principle of law says that in case of doubt you have to find the accused not guilty.
f) THE COURT IGNORED REGULATIONS FOR VERDICT. I do not think Bill was proven a murderer for many reasons, including the ones above. Nevertheless, the Jury was forced to find him guilty of Murder in the first degree. The Commonwealth of PA required for First Degree murder that the murderer be in some sort of mental capacity to be able to carry on the action willfully and deliberately [First Degree Murder: An intentional killing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of WILLFUL, DELIBERATE and PREMEDITATED action]. Again, here words were minced and waters were muddled…NOBODY knows how drugged Bill was, and the court did not even want to ask the question: they just wanted to CONVICT (a conviction rate is a metric).
In a Court of Law is shouldn’t matter whether you love or hate the suspect. In this case the System convicted a Gay man without sufficient evidence.
Note: some people who post here have personal issues. Some feel hate for Bill, others have their conscience eating them up. I imagine Judas went trough some of that emotional torture. However, I can assure those who feel there are another Judas that those feelings are not necessary: Bill has never said an ill word about them. Bill has learned to forgive.
Unlike them, I present objective facts and accounts, because I do not write to meet some emotional need, but to bring JUSTICE.
I again thanks PGN for allowing this side of the story to be heard!
your comments about Bill are a good distraction to the fact that an alleged predator is still walking the streets free. Tell me are you a friend of Bruce Covington? Your comments about Smithson really help to detract from the real issues here. Issues that are much bigger than your feelings for Covington and Bill. Issues that continue to allow our court system to deny us REAL marriages. So, as long as you continue to justify what they did to Bill in that court room (even though you were not there) you are allowing us as a community to be oppressed by society. You must believe that is OK? If you are truly as uneducated as you say then google "self-discrimination" there are a multitude of resources out there for you. Maybe then you will see how damaging the defense of your friend Bruce Covington is to our community, equal rights issues and to anyone who has ever had to face a court system like we have seen in this case - especially if they are gay.
If you have more info to share and do not wish to share on this blog, then by all means, email at @ friednsofbill@ymail.com. I thank you for everything and pray for you as well. You are so brave for coming forward. I pray that you are the one who maybe able to help Bill. Thank you for everything.
Love,
Friends of Bill
With patent homophobic overtones, this trial was blotched at least in two accounts:
A) TWO –not just one- potential culprits were in the house when the murder happened. Only one was changed and on trial. That is very odd.
Forget for a second that it was Bill on trial…You got to admit that that IS VERY odd.
Now consider this:
The other potential murderer (Bruce Covington/Bruce Chapman) put distance between himself and the murdered victim by lying to the Police as to his whereabouts that night (Why?).
If the third man had been John Paul II one would think ‘Right, only Bill could have done it’, but Bruce Chapman not only is not an honest person, but a purveyor of drugs, who lied to the police about meeting Jason and about being in the house when the murder happened, and who -according to Many Fernandez’s sworn testimony- ‘slipped GHB and raped an unconscious man’.
Honestly, if you do not see this as ODD it is because you are guilty of prejudice: You formed in your mind the concept that Bill and ONLY Bill could have done this. The facts say otherwise.
We give you a logic explanation as to why you must suspend judgment about Bill. A psychological explanation about you is needed to understand why you cling to prejudice.
The second big item ticket that blotched this trial is this:
B) How can a Jury find anyone guilty of murder in the first degree without knowing or asking ‘What was the state of mind’ of the person being tried?
Here are the definitions of Murder as applied in the State of Pennsylvania:
1. First Degree Murder: An intentional killing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated action.
2. Second Degree Murder: Homicide committed by an individual engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony.
3.Third Degree Murder: Any other murder (e.g. when the intent was not to kill, but to harm the victim).
It seems to me that Bill’s due process was corrupted when the Court chose to charge only ONE of the two potential murderers. This is how Bill got to be tried by 12 persons who never asked a relevant question (and whose intellect and capacity to sit in judgment I question).
Bill's right to a due process went further out of the window by the barring of Covinton’ testimony and cross examination from the Jurors.
Covington’s testimony was crucial to determine Bill’s state of mind and intent (both items absolutely necessary to decide what type of murder that was, if any).
Instead, it was assumed that Bill was alert and in such state of mid that he could differentiate right from wrong, and that Bill had undertaken a willful, deliberated, and premeditated action.
Consider this: The fact that Bill had been injected with rugs twice that night would have landed him in jail for DUI: if the police could have caught him while driving and measured the drugs in his system they would have pronounced him un-fit to drive.
If that is for driving, How about un-fit for intent or premeditation?
In the end, the DA's shenanigans and speculations were wrapped in homophobia, and they were spoon-fed to an unqualified Jury (members of which were literally sound sleep during portions of the trial).
If this was Justice I am Superman!
But then again, who cares about Justice for a Gay man?
Even if your experience Mr. Covington's past cannot directly help to exonerate Bill for the murder; if anyone involved in the investigation is reading this, hopefully your comments will help to spark interest in further considering Mr. Covington's role in this case. If his role were considered at all, from the beginning, The selection of a death sentence certified jury and the verdicts in Bill's trial may have been completely different.
Your contribution is appreciated more than you know. Thank you!
I thank you for your courage. We will value whatever you are able to tell. God Bless you. Please know that we mean no disrespect to you. We are just trying to get answers to our questions.
F. Bruce Covington certainly is a character that one should be careful about being involved with. I am sure that Bill asks himself everyday how he could have been personally involved with someone of his nature.
I hope you get the answers you are searching for, and of course the journey will be difficult. But please if by any chance you remember something or you learn of anything about his past that would help an innocent man be freed, remember this site, and please if nothing else, write it down here.
Please, find peace in your journey.
Fen Bruce Covington holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Utah, J.D from the University of Utah, and L.L.M. in taxation from San Diego.
Covington was a former Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah (a bishop is the leader of a local congregation of about 200-300 members). While serving as a Bishop, he was a lawyer for LDS Philanthropies (then LDS Foundations) working in tax/charitable giving for Brigham Young University and the LDS/Mormon church (see references at bottom.)
He was abruptly let go as bishop in late 2000 or early 2001. He was simultaneously released from his position at LDS Philanthropies. Members of my congregation were not given a reason for his release and were firmly told by superiors not to speculate.
In 2001, Covington joined Penn State as Managing Director of Planned Giving and Endowment. He was later let go. Follow link below for announcement of his appointment in 2001 and a brief biographical summary.
http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_2001/Sept6/appointments.html
He then joined Georgetown University’s Office of Planned Giving. He was later let go.
Contact: F. Bruce Covington, J.D., LL.M. 800-347-8067 email: bfc7@georgetown.edu . Or write: Office of Planned Giving. Georgetown University Medical Center.
He may have also had a brief stint at a law school before joing St. Joseph's.
I would be very surprised if any of these universities share information about him. Bruce Covington is still listed as a licensed member of the Utah bar.
1) Utah Bar Membership
http://www.myutahbar.org/PublicDirectory/PublicDirectory.aspx?s=Covington
2) Utat State Bar Tax Section (BYU info)
http://www.utahbar.org/sections/taxlaw/html/tax_section_member___54.html
Other sources:
Provo, Grandview 10th Ward
1600 N 1800 W, Provo UT
https://secure.lds.org/units/home/0,9781,600-1-7-195251,00.html
Provo, Grandview Stake
1600 N 1800 W, Provo UT
801-370-6740 (Office)https://secure.lds.org/units/stake/1,9780,606-1-5-513962,00.html
(both websites contain only current information)
LDS Philanthropies
Planned Giving Office
1450 North University Avenue
Provo, UT 84604
801-422-4444
http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/byu/
Discipline for lawyers generally governed by
2008 ABA Model Rules(laws adopted in most states)
Rule 8.4 Misconduct
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to..
(b)commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation
(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice
Reporting Professional Misconduct
ABA Model Rule 8.3
(a) A lawyer who knows that another lawyer has committed a violation of the rules of Professional Conduct that raises a substnatial questions as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority
(comment c) does not apply to a lawyer retained to represent a lawyer-subject to attorney-client privilege
Please do whatever you can to gain the strength to proceed forward in your past and bring the information to the autorities. An innocent man is sitting behind bars for a life sentence for the wrong reasons. Right now, you shed a light that none of us has had on Mr. Covington. Please even if you need to post something here, let us help you and in return you will be helping Bill. Please consider this....
I admire you for your courage and will pray for God to give you strength to find your peace.
Please, if you have anything to say, please do so. You can never stuff the past, it always comes back at unexpected times and knocks you back down. Beleive me I know. Then you try and stuff it again, and again it comes back and just eats away at you. Just remember a man is serving a life time for something he did not do, and the only other person in the house who could give us any insite has pleaded the 5th. Why in the world would someone do that if he knew the truth or was not involved? What is he hiding? If he knew Bill did it, why hasn't he screamed it from the roof tops. How can the courts accept that he is not talking? How is he free on bail? Why in the hell would his wife bail him out? I wouldn't want to be under the same roof with him, and they have innocent children.
Jason's parents are also suffering over what they think is the truth and this will only keep resurfacing over and over again until the truth is finally told. Or when a new trial is granted to Mr. Smithson. We as friends of Bill do not want to bring any more heartache to Jason's parents for they have endured a life time of pain already. But we also have heartache of our own and the truth will set everyone free.
We as friends of Bill would appreciate anything you can tell us about Mr. Covington's past, just post it here. Or atleast tell us where we can start to look. But I do not think since you are bothering to check and post to this site that you are burying anything about your past. You need to free yourself and at the same time you might free an inocent man. You already took the first step, I pray for you and hope you will take the next step. Ask for God's help.
We can only hope that you will help us, if not, we are sure there are more of you out there, anyone who knows anything about Fen Bruce Covington please help us.
God Bless
It may also help you, more than you realize. Hopefully others will come forward too.