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UPSHUR COUNTY \u2014 An East Texas man has plead guilty to murdering his wife with an axe. The Upshur County Criminal District Attorney\u2019s Office said a Gilmer citizen called 911 to report a man attempting to get into their vehicle on Feb. 26, 2024 at around 1:43 a.m. Police were on the scene within two minutes of the call and located the suspect. The suspect \u201cwas soaking wet on the front of his clothes and dry on the back.\u201d<\/p>\n
When officers questioned who he was, he reportedly lied before telling them his real name, Craig Allen Smith, and admitted to lying. He told officers he did not want to reveal his identity because \u201chis wife was dead and he did not want to get caught up in it.\u201d According to our news partner KETK, Smith reportedly told police his wife had been dead for a few hours and that she was at a home on Walnut Street in Gilmer. He was booked into the Upshur County Jail for an outstanding warrant.<\/p>\n
While Smith was being transported to the jail, other officers went to the home address where they met with the victim\u2019s grandmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe invited the officers inside where the body of Vennessa Renae Smith was found,\u201d the DA\u2019s office said. \u201cShe was lying in blood in her bed with multiple large lacerations to the upper parts of her body.\u201d Beside her bed, officials said they found a splitting maul axe, which had been used to strike multiple blows to her head, face and neck. Her time of death was approximately 50 minutes before officers had made contact with Craig. After collecting evidence from the crime scene for analysis, a positive match of the victims blood was reportedly found on Craig Smith’s clothing.<\/p>\n
The time of death was established by state officials upon learning that the victim\u2019s daughter was next door. She allegedly heard an argument between the Craig and Vennessa Renae Smith. She texted her mother at 12:55 a.m. to see if victim was okay, however, never heard back.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Vennessa\u2019s family and members of the Gilmer Police Department were in the courtroom to hear Craig plead guilty to murder, \u201cthe first time [Craig] had admitted what he had done.\u201d Craig Smith has since been sentenced to 50 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UPSHUR COUNTY \u2014 An East Texas man has plead guilty to murdering his wife with an axe. The Upshur County Criminal District Attorney\u2019s Office said a Gilmer citizen called 911 to report a man attempting to get into their vehicle on Feb. 26, 2024 at around 1:43 a.m. Police were on the scene within two … Continue reading Man sentenced after brutally killing wife with axe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1383403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/01\/Axe-murderer-e1736977509456-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 19:26:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/01\/Axe-murderer-e1736977509456-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1383398"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383458,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383398\/revisions\/1383458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1383403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1383398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1383398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1383398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}