Child death murder trial begins in Gadsden

Narsheum Temar Smith                Brandy Nicole Lee

Jury selection began Tuesday in Etowah county in capital murder case against a man and woman charged in the beating death of the woman’s 2-year-old son.  23 year old Brandy Nicole Lee,  and 35 year old  Narsheun Temar Smith,  are charged with capital murder of a child under 14 in the 2011 death of Trevaughn Lee Blount. Prosecutors do not plan to seek the death penalty for either defendant, and both have been free on bond since April. The cases against the two defendants were consolidated earlier this year.  During a motion hearing Tuesday morning before Etowah County Circuit Judge David Kimberly, attorneys Scott Stewart and Vincent Pentecost, representing Lee, asked for a continuance after prosecutors notified them of some additional witnesses they wanted to call in the case.  Etowah County Deputy District Attorney Marcus Reid said in preparing the case, prosecutors looked at the list of witnesses each defendant’s attorney’s planned to call to testify, and interviewed some of those witnesses. Reid said they found witnesses who said they’d seen defendant Lee thump her son in the head, slap him on the back of the head, push him down and hit him in the chest prior to the injuries he sustained in August 2011 that claimed his life. Reid said as the staff talked to one witness, it would lead to another. Prosecutors were told that Lee had confessed to an inmate at the Etowah County Detention Center that she had killed her son. Interviewing that inmate led them to another who also heard a confession from Lee. Testimony in the case is set to begin today.