Teen sentenced to life for Va. murders of mother and son

A teenager who killed a mother and her son in their Dale City home during a botched burglary -- a chilling crime that the teen called a "mishap" Friday -- will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Xavier Pinckney, 18, was sentenced Friday to life without the possibility of parole for the December 2008 shootings of James M. Smith, 19, a college student who had just returned home for a holiday break, and Smith's mother, Jean, 39.

Pinckney, then a junior at C.D. Hylton Senior High School, climbed through a window in the Smiths' home on the afternoon of Dec. 19 with plans to steal valuables to sell for cash. He ended up shattering a family that was beloved in the community.

"This has had an unspeakable impact on myself and my children," Rick Smith, Jean Smith's husband and James's father, said in court. "I am faced with the prospect of trying to rebuild my life, trying to be both parents to three incredible children. And at some point trying to move on, but I'm not sure I can."

Family members said Rick and Jean Smith's youngest son, Liam, 10, must stay with a babysitter before and after school instead of being with his mother. He is scared he could lose his father, too. Daughter Sarah, 23, celebrated her college graduation without her mother. And son Connor, 17, still struggles with the memory of finding his brother's body.

During the sentencing hearing in Prince William County Circuit Court, Pinckney read a rambling statement he had prepared on a sheet of yellow legal paper. He called the killings a "mishap" and said the tragedy would make the Smith family "stronger."

"I don't want them to forgive me, but forgive the situation," Pinckney said. He later added, "This isn't the truth. They will find out the truth one day."

But Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O'Brien was unmoved. "It's not a mishap, Mr. Pinckney. It's murder," she said. "These were two extraordinary people you killed."

James Smith, a Hylton graduate, studied musical theater at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. Jean Smith, a onetime member of the Prince William Park Authority board, was a volunteer at Hylton, where she headed the chorus boosters club and was known as "Mama Smith" to choir members.

"Jean was a second mom to literally hundreds of children in our community, and Jim was best friends with an equal amount," Rick Smith said.

The day of the killings, Pinckney crept inside the house thinking nobody was home, prosecutors have said. James Smith, who had returned home late the night before after a trip with his a cappella group, was asleep on a couch.

Pinckney stole two guns, family heirlooms kept in the master bedroom, and had loaded one before he spotted James Smith. Pinckney later told police in a written confession that he kicked something and woke Smith. He said he shot the college student "out of reaction."

When Jean Smith arrived home, she discovered her dying son, prosecutors said. Pinckney told police that he fled but then returned to grab a jacket he had left behind. Fearing that Jean Smith would recognize him from Hylton, he shot her in the ear as she tried to call for help.

Pinckney made off with the guns, a laptop, a cellphone and ammunition. The stolen items were worth less than $1,000.

Connor Smith, then 16, discovered his brother's body after he came home from school that afternoon. "It has taken months of therapy to get the image of Jim out of my mind, especially late at night after I go to sleep," he said in court.

Pinckney was convicted in September of capital murder but could not be sentenced to death because he was 17 at the time of the slayings. The U.S. Supreme Court has banned the death penalty for juveniles.