BEND, Ore. (AP) – Newly available court documents provide details about last month’s killing of a retired policewoman in Central Oregon.
The body of Gayla Smith was found wrapped in blankets in her Crooked River Ranch home. Police arrested her adult son, 29-year-old Gavin Smith-Brown.
The Bulletin newspaper reports that the case against Gavin Smith-Brown includes testimony from Smith’s friends, relatives and neighbors, who described his increasingly erratic and threatening behavior toward his mother, and her growing fear of him.
It also includes a year’s worth of police reports from domestic disturbance calls, all of which the mother initiated.
Smith-Brown has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. His attorneys declined comment.