An 18-year-old Campbell County man who was 17 when he stabbed his mother in the back last summer was sentenced Tuesday to between 20 and 30 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder.
Tharles Smith was also ordered to pay $9,853.34 in restitution.
Tharles Smith and his mother Karla Smith had an argument the night of June 10, 2024, at their home in rural Campbell County over whether it was time for the teen to live apart from his family in a mobile home they were preparing for him.
He was four months shy of his 18th birthday and had been committed to multiple mental health institutions.
When Karla went to bed that night, Tharles Smith stabbed her in the back, plunging an 8-inch blade two-thirds of the way into her chest cavity, breaking her shoulder blade and puncturing her lung, according to court testimony at Tharles’ sentencing hearing Tuesday in Campbell County District Court.
Claims Of Abuse
Differing narratives surrounding Tharles’ history and character surfaced at that court hearing.
By Tharles’ account given in court documents, he endured harrowing abuse, a foster care phase, and four mental health institutionalizations throughout his childhood.
By his family’s account, he was difficult to raise and a danger to the family, and his mother fears he’ll hunt her down to hurt her again someday.
Tharles had told troubling details of his childhood to a presentence investigator, which District Court Judge Stuart Healy III described aloud in court.
“They have not been confirmed,” said the judge of those details. “You read them, and they are disturbing.”
Those included claims of abuse by a prior guardian, more abuse while in foster care, then commitment to four mental health facilities while he lived with his mother and adoptive father after that.
Healy sighed.
“I don’t know how much truth there is to them,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say that any young person who’s been in these four places has struggled mightily.”
Tharles’ former guardian ad litem, DaNece Day, wrote the court a letter urging compassion. She said he suffered a shortage of love in childhood, lavished his own love on his 4-H animals and floundered after the juvenile court attempted to rehabilitate him.
Tharles had no criminal history prior to the attempted murder, though he had behavioral issues, Healy noted.
“(Day) thinks his sentence should focus more on rehabilitation than punishment, that he’s not a lost cause,” related Healy, who characterized the letter as “compassionate.”
He continued, saying Day wrote, “that while he needs to be punished, the punishment should not be so harsh that he doesn’t get a chance to break the cycle of abuse and violence he’s known from the earliest days of his life.”
On The Other Hand …
On the other hand, Tharles’ mother and adoptive father spoke of their shattered trust and family struggles in the wake of the stabbing, and what they called its premeditated nature.
“I love Tharles to death,” Karla Smith told the court. “It hurts to have to sit and think of what he did during the night, that he had to wait — and push for me and my daughters to go to sleep before he ended up attacking.”
What Tharles said that night keeps going through Karla’s head, she said.
“He kept saying … ‘Are you guys ready for bed? Are you ready for bed?’” said Karla.
Her husband Andrew Smith said that since the incident, Karla struggles to sit in crowds, the family are undergoing therapy, and Karla “is very scared” of Tharles getting out and hurting her.
“To hear that Tharles is saying, or anybody is saying he did not have love in his family is just incorrect,” said Andrew.
As The Lawyers Tell It
Campbell County Attorney Nathan Henkes in his statement to the court emphasized the “absolutely egregious” nature of the attack and the signs it was premeditated.
“The fact that Mrs. Smith survived — that there wasn’t something more significant to this — is really, truly a miracle in itself,” said Henkes.
And “there were definitely issues with” Tharles in the home, the prosecutor added.
Public Defender Jonathan Foreman countered, saying Tharles has done well for more than a year in jail without psychotropic medications; he’s never indicated he wants to harm his mother or his family; and he just wants to stay away from them.
“He’s expressed no animosity towards his family,” said Foreman. “He doesn’t want to be anywhere around them. They’re his trigger. He knows what his trigger is — he wants to stay away from his trigger.”
Foreman also noted that Tharles Smith’s 4-H animals were his most precious possessions.
“His family immediately sold all his 4-H animals and published it in the newspaper” after Tharles was charged, Foreman said. “You have a very hot and cold relationship here. … I’ve never actually seen this family dynamic take place before.”
Foreman asked for Healy to impose a sentence of between 20 and 30 years in prison, recognizing that with good behavior, Tharles could face a parole board at around the 13-year mark.
Henkes asked instead for the judge to sentence Tharles to 25-35 years in prison.
Either way, Tharles would receive credit for the 449 days he’s already spent in jail.
Articulating the tension between Tharles’ reports of harrowing childhood abuse and the violent nature of the crime, the judge chose the 20-30-year sentence.
As to whether — as Karla insisted in court — Tharles’ mental health is so poor he requires psychotropic medications, Healy indicated he wasn’t sure about that.
“Seems to me, for someone that’s capable of this kind of offense against his mother — it sounds like some sort of Greek tragedy — that he certainly should be considered for medication,” said Healy.
Yet, added the judge, the man attested to having been fine without it while in jail.
Prior Interviews
The teen was charged as an adult last summer on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, which is punishable by life in prison.
The charge was later amended to the attempted second-degree murder, which carries a penalty of between 20 years and life in prison.
The judge was not able to opt for a sentence of fewer than 20 years, unless he was willing to spring all the way down to a sentence of probation, a quirk of minimum mandatory sentences with which Wyoming judges sometimes voice frustration.
Tharles had not been following the house rules the night of June 10, 2024, court documents relate from other interviews.
He waited until everyone in the home went to sleep, retrieved a knife with an 8-inch blade from a magnetic holder, went into his mother’s room, leapt on her and stabbed her in her upper left back, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed in his case.
“Why did you punch me?” Karla recalled asking as she woke. She told Cowboy State Daily that at first, she believed her son had punched her.
“No, you actually have a knife in your back,” Tharles answered, according to his mother’s interview. “I stabbed you.”
Family Shaken
Campbell County Sheriff’s personnel arrived and detained Tharles.
Karla was flown to Campbell County Health in Gillette, Wyoming, with the knife still protruding from her back, she recalled.
The attack and police response traumatized her 19-year-old daughter, who has autism, Karla said. The teen awoke to police shining flashlights while a knife was still jutting from her mother’s back.
At the hospital, doctors wondered if they’d have to perform surgery to remove the knife.
But Campbell County Health surgeon Jake Rinker was able to pull it out, Karla recalled.
It had plunged through her scapula, broken two ribs and punctured her lung, she said. Karla said a portion of the blanket that had been covering her went in with it, so doctors had to cut the fabric out.
Rinker told police that the blade went two-thirds of the way through Karla’s chest cavity.
Her lung collapsed and medical personnel inserted a tube to reopen it. She spent two-and-a-half days in the intensive care unit and four days altogether in the hospital, she said.
While Waiting For Deputies
The night of the alleged attack June 10, 2024, Karla called 911 once she realized she’d been stabbed.
Tharles wanted to leave her room because he did not want to watch his mother die, he told law enforcement. But Karla said she convinced him to stay there until authorities arrived.
In fact, Tharles held his mother while they waited, Foreman said in court.
It took 45 minutes, but it felt like forever, she said.
She was “very lucky” to have been stabbed in that manner and location, Rinker told a Campbell County Sheriff’s investigator at the emergency room, according to the court affidavit.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
