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Evan Marquis Smith, 38, of Morrisville, was found guilty on charges of third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and strangulation, among other related offenses, in the death of Jamie Beighley, 39, according to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.
His sentencing was deferred to a later date.
Smith had a decades-long history of abuse against the local mom of five, which tragically ended with him strangling her inside the New Falls Motel in Falls Township on July 1, 2021, authorities and loved ones said. She died from her injuries three days later.
Smith maintained that Beighley died during an accidental choking in the motel room. However, prosecutors determined that it would have taken at least four minutes of deliberate and continued pressure and substantial force to kill Beighley.
“This was personal,” Bucks County Deputy District Attorney Mary Kate Kohler said. “Jamie was leaving him after 18 years of torture and violence.”
- DAILY VOICE EXCLUSIVE: To learn more about Beighley's tragic tale as told by her loved ones, click here.
Officers responding to a report of a cardiac arrest around 11:40 p.m. found Beighley on the floor of the motel room without a pulse, they said. There was apparently blood on her head, face, and hands, as well as a pool of blood on the bed.
Smith was also in the motel room, but at some point, he became uncooperative and fled the scene, police said. He eventually led police on a short pursuit before he was captured near a Morrisville home where their kids were living, police and family members said.
Beighley was taken to the hospital and never regained consciousness.
Dr. Ian Hood, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, said in court that the bruising to Beighley's neck and the fracture of her hyoid bone in her neck indicated someone had been gripping her neck extremely hard.
“I have no doubt that she died of manual strangulation,” he testified.
Hood also said that bite marks on Beighley's fingers and scratches to Smith’s chest and neck point to a struggle and her fighting off her attacker.
Court records show Smith had been charged 11 times since 2003 for DUI, aggravated assault, harassment, disorderly conduct, theft, and more.
He actually admitted to a corrections officer and an inmate at the Bucks County Correctional Facility that he choked and killed his girlfriend, they testified.
Smith even pulled down his shirt to show the inmate the scratches he suffered during the struggle, according to testimony.
Also testifying was the 15-year-old son of Beighley and Smith, one of three they have together. He mentioned two earlier domestic assaults, one in January 2021 that left his mother battered and a second on April 28, 2021, where his father set their trailer on fire, according to prosecutors.
The tumultuous relationship was also detailed in 322 pages of text messages presented by Kohler. In many of the text messages, sent from early May 2021 to just days before Beighley’s murder, Smith threatened to injure and kill Beighley and members of her family, authorities said.
“The defendant killed Ms. Beighley with evil in his heart and mind,” Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said.
“If he couldn’t have her then no one else would. At sentencing, we will argue that he is such a danger to society that he must be imprisoned for decades in order to keep our community safe from him.”
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