Michael Smith, who shot and killed his estranged wife then turned the gun on himself at a McComb motel, had been released just days earlier from a Louisiana jail on charges of stalking and harassing her and her boyfriend.
McComb police said Smith, 42, of Centreville, shot and killed Kathy Smith, 39, of St. Francisville, La., in a restroom near the lobby of the National Inn on Delaware Avenue before killing himself around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
West Feliciana Parish Sheriff J. Austin Daniel said Smith twice pleaded guilty to charges involving his wife and was released from jail there on Monday.
He had served six months for stalking his wife and disturbing the peace in an incident involving Ms. Smith’s boyfriend, who lives in Wakefield, La., north of St. Francisville.
The boyfriend was not identified.
Michael Smith pleaded guilty to the charges on Jan. 23 in West Feliciana Parish District Court, the sheriff said.
Smith was out on probation at the time from an October 2008 case in which he was charged with telephone harassment and criminal trespass for an incident involving Ms. Smith’s boyfriend.
When Michael Smith pleaded guilty to the stalking and disturbing the peace charges the judge revoked Smith’s probation and sentenced him to a year in jail, Daniel said.
Smith earned an early release in part for good behavior, he said.
Events leading up to the shooting unfolded Wednesday night when Michael Smith followed his wife after she got off work at South of the Border, a restaurant between St. Francisville and Woodville.
“I don’t think she even knew he was there,” Daniel said. “She called her boyfriend and said she was going home.”
Around 10:30 p.m., after Ms. Smith drove about two miles south on Highway 61, Michael Smith shot at her Toyota pickup with a shotgun, hitting the truck just behind the driver’s side door, breaking glass and forcing Ms. Smith off the road. He then forced her into his vehicle and drove off.
Ms. Smith called West Feliciana Parish authorities and told them she had been abducted by two black men and then dropped off at a truck stop in West Baton Rouge Parish, across the Mississippi River.
“We believe he had a gun to her head and was forcing her to tell us that to throw us off,” Daniel said.
Smith drove to McComb and was able to check into the National Inn.
Apparently as they were opening the door to their rented room, Ms. Smith broke away from her abductor and called her boyfriend, who by then was at the sheriff’s substation in West Feliciana Parish.
“(The boyfriend) had the speaker on, and we heard where she really was,” Daniel said. “Then we heard a sound like the phone had been knocked from her hand or dropped.”
Witnesses at the motel told McComb police that they heard Kathy Smith screaming for help, and they saw Michael Smith enter the National Inn lobby at the same time police cars were rushing to the hotel parking lot.
By that time, Ms. Smith had run into a bathroom near the motel lobby to hide, but Michael Smith followed her inside and fatally shot her before killing himself.
Pike County Coroner Percy Pittman pronounced both of them dead at the scene.
Newman Funeral Home in Centreville is in charge of services for Michael Smith.
