A 10-year-old girl who brought a juror to tears Thursday recounting abuse at the hands of her stepfather, Damen Dean Smith, told a social worker in a taped interview two years ago that he never hurt her or her family.
"My daddy never hurt us," the girl, named Jade, said through tears. "I just wish we were home right now. In two more days it's my dad's birthday, and I don't want to miss it."
But in a taped interview with another social worker two days later and played to the jury Friday, Jade's story changed as she told how Smith choked and punched her and her siblings, including her brother, Mikey, whose arm Smith is accused of breaking.
Once when the girl's baby sister was climbing out of a crib, Jade told the interviewer that Smith turned violent after taking a pill.
"He said: 'Kill your baby sister or else I'll choke you,' " she said.
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She also told the interviewer that she believed Smith was responsible for breaking Mikey's arm and for punching him in the stomach. She said she was directed not to tell anyone about the abuse, and to say that her brother fell off a couch.
"If I go back with him," she said, "he's going to do it again to me. I don't want to go back. I'm too afraid of him."
"He told me not to tell anybody or else he'll do it again," she said.
Smith, 32, of Duluth, sat motionless while the tape was played of the girl describing numerous atrocities, including being punched in the face and legs and hit in the stomach with the sharp end of a hammer.
"I screamed, but then he shoved me in the mouth," she said.
When Smith was accused of breaking his stepson's arm, the girl told the interviewer that Smith dropped Mikey while getting him ready to go to the hospital.
"I think it's on purpose, or on accident," the girl said. "I don't know."
The jury also watched two interviews taped two years ago with Smith's biological son, then 5, who told a social worker that his father was not responsible for abuse but that it was instead done by foster parents.
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But in an interview a few days later, the boy said his father punched and bruised him and threatened to cut his arm with a knife.
"He choked me, too," the boy said. "He choked me really hard."
A school teacher and principal also testified Friday that Jade reported being abused by her stepfather, with one saying the girl came to school with bruises and a swollen, bloody lip.
Smith is charged with first- and third-degree felony assault, three counts of felony domestic assault by strangulation, malicious punishment of a child resulting in great bodily harm and two counts of malicious punishment of a child.
If convicted of the most serious charges, Smith faces a sentence of up to 122 months in prison. However, the county attorney's office has told the court it will seek a longer-than-guideline sentence if Smith is convicted.
