Raye Dawn Smith Sentenced
Raye Dawn Smith, 27, was yesterday formally sentenced to 27 years in prison following her conviction by a Creek County jury on charges of enabling child abuse.
Rather than ask for mercy, Smith used her court appearance to speak to her former mother-in-law.
At sentencing Smith looked at her former mother-in-law Kathie Briggs and said, “Kathie, I forgive you.“. She then sat down.
Smith had told the judge in August, “I have always felt this was a conspiracy against me. I also believe that there are people guilty of things running free. Kathie Briggs knows I didn’t hurt Kelsey, and she knows I didn’t sit back and let it happen.”
After the brief sentencing hearing concluded, Kathie Briggs and others spoke to the news media.
Kathie Briggs said, “She’s demented. I did have to chuckle just a bit. She still blames the people that tried to save Kelsey. I was terribly shocked. She finally had a chance, one last chance, to stand up and say, ‘I’m sorry, Kelsey,’ and instead she addressed me.”
Kelsey’s father, Lance Briggs said, “She doesn’t get it. No remorse.“. Briggs further called Smith’s statement “mind boggling”.
Michele Reeves, one of the jurors, said, “She should have protected that baby with everything that she had. There was no evidence showing she ever tried to protect her. It hurts to think that moms would do that. Don’t know what her reason was for it but the evidence showed after being told numerous times that the child was being abused she just looked the other way.”
Smith’s new attorney, Stephen Jones of Enid, who defended Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, said, “An injustice has been committed here. The evidence that would clear Raye Dawn was not heard by the jury.”
Raye Dawn Smith must serve at least 85 percent of her sentence before becoming eligible for parole, that is almost 23 years.
Jurors in July found Smith guilty of allowing her then-second husband Michael Lee Porter to abuse two-year-old Kelsey Briggs. Porter was initially charged with sexually abusing and murdering Kelsey, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of enabling child abuse in a plea deal with prosecutors. Porter received a 30 year prison sentence in exchange for his guilty plea.
Smith and Porter married in April 2005. Kelsey Briggs died on October 11, 2005. Her death was ruled the result of child abuse. It was determined that she had been abused for months, suffering broken bones, bruises, a sexual assault and other injuries. At the time of her death Kelsey Briggs’ father, Lance Briggs, was on his way home following military service in Iraq.
i have heard of some horrific things before but this is most….. how in the world can some one do something so awful to a little angel like this. for the father, i can not even begin to put myself in the place of where your head is at. i am at such a lose of words for you and the pain that i know your going through. i really wish things were different and you could have your right with that soul less prick. i think the justice you would have shown to him would be very very fair. prison was just not enough. please remember that your angel is with you all the time. it shows in every picture that she was a 100% daddys girl.
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Well I for one have never heard of how cruel an ex in law can be. from day one kathie has been out to get or destroy raye dawn. Lance was never around for court hearings and such, why wasn’t he there to help save his baby. Because he was to busy keeping himself out of trouble and getting discharged from the military. Lance was NOT coming home when kelsey died, Lance was and had been in georgia for months, besides coming to oklahoma alot, until days before court hearings. Funny how someone can sit there and smack how raye should have known. well people wake up this is the real world and there are sneaky abusers out there. Raye did everything she was told to do. she was being looked after by 4 diff. agencies. So if you think raye is guilty then you should look at kathie and lance as well. Lance NEVER once tried helping his baby, and kelseys legs were broke in the care of kathie after falling in a hole in the yard, REMEMBER that Kathie????
And if you think every pic she is a daddy’s girl well you need to think again and look at other pics, there are pics on myspace under kelseysmemories, freekelseysmom and website: http://www.thetruthaboutkelsey.com or http://www.freekelseysmom.com there is tons of pics with her mommy!!!
The mother Raye Dawn thought she could out-smart the system. She didn’t have a choice, the agencies were involved, and she was just playing the game. She tried to manipulate them. She did a pretty good job too. They were confused by her and they couldn’t determine where the abuse was coming from. Her deceit and lies and games cost her daughter her life. She did NOTHING to protect her child. She was obviously very much in love with the man who was abusing her daughter and she did not stick up for her daughter. She married the man who was abusing her daughter. She deserves just what she got. I hope she gets her ass beaten everyday in Prison. Thankfully she couldn’t outsmart the judge. It helps when her daughter died at her house. She is the lowest and most disgusting form of life there is.
this is one of the worst cases of child abuse i have ever heard of. Not only did that 2 year old angel suffer so badly in her final hours in this world, she’s in heaven knowing that her mother is in prison for her untimely death. Raye Dawn Smith is not a bad mother, she is a mother who tried her hardest to protect her child and love her child as much as humanly possible. With all the child custody battling going on with that pathetic Kathie Briggs, she couldn’t figure out what was truly wrong with kelsey. Kathie was nothing but a diversion for Michael Porter. He took advantage of that to the fullest extent. I hope he burns in hell for what he done to this innocent little girl.
I pray Kelsey is finally safe in heaven and i pray her mother can be released and able to mourne properly for the loss of her beautiful little girl.
This mother could not help her daughter because she was too stuck on herself. She was a horrible mother to Kelsey. She wanted a man to support her so badly so she wouldn’t have to work. She manipulated him to buy her own mothers home in her name when she didn’t even have a job and had never held down a job that paid more than miniumum wage. She is a conniving manipulating B! It’s too bad that she didn’t get life in prison. That’s what she deserves. She doesn’t deserve to EVER get out of prison. What’s more, her mother and grandmother have NOT sold their houses to finance Raye Dawn’s attorney. They are asking for the public to support their daughter/granddaughter. Her grandmother has even bought another house with the money that people have donated. Don’t be fooled by these manipulating women. They are just out for your money and always have been. Meeker ran two of them out of town, just one more to go.
Findingoutthetruth on November 11th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Well I for one have never heard of how cruel an ex in law can be. from day one kathie has been out to get or destroy raye dawn.
I think Raye Dawn did herself in. I came across an article and have been reading up on both sides and I am just shocked! There were two people with Kelsey the day she died….Raye Dawn and her new husband, Mike Porter. They both point the finger to the other. The bottom line is Raye Dawn was responsible for that little girl. If Raye Dawn didn’t do it, she left her daughter in the care of someone who did. One way or the other, she has gotta take some blame for what happened to her child. Maybe this Kathie person does not like Raye Dawn, but then Kathie didn’t leave the child alone with a man who killed her! And Kelsey’s daddy Lance did not do that either. If Raye Dawn had taken care of her child and not left her with this man who had no biological connection to the child, Kelsey would be fine today. If I brought a person into my child’s life who abused and killed her, I would never be able to live with myself. I may not have been the one to abuse my child, but since I forced the person who did into their life, I really might as well have been! Kelsey had no say in who she stayed with….it was her mother’s responsibility to make sure she was always kept safe. Her mother failed that little girl and claiming people are out to get her shows she is sitting where she needs to be for the next 27 years!
Even if Raye Dawn did fail to do as much as she might have due to her blinded love for what turned out to be a real piece of filth (Porter) I feel Raye Dawn truly loved her little girl and suffering loss of her is punishment enough…27 years in prison on top of that is excessive. What really infuriates me is that Michael Lee Porter only got 30 years which would seem enough if after serving all 30 years he then got the death sentence. A slow and painful death would be too good for this despicable creep…there are people on death row for less of a crime than sexually abusing and killing an innocent child. Hopefully he will get his just deserves in or soon after getting out of prison.
I am a 15 year old, and even I can understand that both Raye Dawn Smith and Michael Lee Porter deserve to be where they are. The only thing I believe is that Porter shouldve in jail for life not just for 30 years.
The thing is.. this incident was totally preventable, so why did Smith stay with Porter if she knew that he was abusing her little girl. If she really cared about her daughter she wouldn’t have married that scumbag! She was too dumbstruck to realize that that man could do so much harm to her little girl.
Poor Lance. Has to come home from war, probably seeing people dieing, to bury his dead daughter. I wonder if Lance was thinking about killing Porter, I know I would be.
How much could Lance do when he is half way across the world from his daughter, I doubt he could do a whole lot. How could anyone do something to a child. I’m sure that question ran through his head so many times. I cried when I read the story, I couldn’t imagine living it as her father or mother.
Was Kelsey but on this earth for a sacrafice, to warn peoples about child abuse?
Michael Lee Porter and Raye Dawn Smith deserve whatever is given to them.. and they have it coming!
She is right where she needs to be. She put her own wants and needs above that childs. She continued to have that baby around her sadistic husband even though she was told not to. How could she not see the abuse. All of you that defend her can keep on, no one believes you especially the jurors. The ending of this story, with the violent death of a toddler, tells you that it wasn’t the fathers family abusing her as you all want to claim. Thank god that her new baby was taken from them, it would have had a life of abuse hell. I sincerly hope the other inmates are treating her well in the house. Just like she allowed her baby to be treated.