A Texas man linked to the murder of a pregnant woman in Bastrop almost seven years ago has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Freddie Smith was sentenced on June 30, according to Bastrop County documents.
Back in 2015, police used cell phone records to link Smith to Vontrey Clark, the former Austin Police officer accused of orchestrating the killing of his seven month pregnant girlfriend Samantha Dean.
Dean’s body was found lying near a dumpster outside a vacant office building a few miles west of Bastrop on February 4, 2015. Dean was seven months pregnant.
Bastrop County taxpayers paid $630,000 for the legal defense of former Austin police officer VonTrey Clark, whose years long murder case ended when he pleaded guilty to Samantha Dean’s and their unborn child’s murders.
County expenditure records, obtained by the Advertiser through an open records request, detail the amounts paid out to expert witnesses, court appointed attorneys, psychological consultants, forensic analysts and for numerous other services in mounting Clark’s defense. All those expenditures, including $34,000 spent processing and recovering data extracted from burner cell phones used in the commission of the crime, culminated in Clark’s December 16 plea deal, in which he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison without parole. Prosecutors had initially sought the death penalty.
Clark pleaded guilty to orchestrating Dean’s death. Prosecutors said he paid Kevin Leo Watson and Freddie Smith $5,000 to shoot Dean because she refused to have an abortion. She and Clark had an affair off and on for about six years, according to court documents.
Tell us your thoughts...