An 18-year-old Campbell County man who was 17 when he stabbed his mother in the back last summer was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 to 30 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder.
Tharles Smith was also required to pay $9,853.34 in restitution.
Tharles Smith and his mother Karla Smith argued on the night of June 10, 2024, at their home in rural Campbell County about 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 admitted to several mental health facilities.
When Karla went to bed that night, Tharles Smith stabbed her in the back, inserting 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
During that court hearing, various narratives about Tharles’ history and character emerged.
Tharles’ account in court documents describes harrowing abuse, a foster care phase, and four mental health institutionalizations during his childhood.
According to his family, he was difficult to raise and a danger to the family, and his mother is afraid he will seek her out to harm her again someday.
Tharles had revealed troubling details about his childhood to a presentence investigator, which District Court Judge Stuart Healy III recounted in court.
“They have not been confirmed,” the judge said about the details. “You read them, and they are disturbing.”
Those included allegations of abuse by a previous guardian, additional abuse while in foster care, and subsequent commitment to four mental health facilities while living with his mother and adoptive father.
Healy sighed.
“I don’t know how much truth there is to them,” he claimed. “I think it’s fair to say that any young person who’s been in these four places has struggled mightily.”
DaNece Day, Tharles’ former guardian ad litem, wrote the court a letter pleading for compassion. She claimed he lacked love as a child, lavished it on his 4-H animals, and failed when the juvenile court tried to rehabilitate him.
Tharles had no criminal history prior to the attempted murder, but he did have behavioral issues, Healy stated.
“(Day) thinks his sentence should focus more on rehabilitation than punishment, that he’s not a lost cause,” said Healy, who described the letter as “compassionate.”
He maintained that Day had written, “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 said in 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.”
Karla stated that what Tharles said that night is still fresh in her mind.
“He repeatedly said… ‘Are you all ready for bed? Are you ready for bed?” Karla asked.
Karla’s husband, Andrew Smith, stated that since the incident, she has struggled to sit in crowds, the family is 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,” Andrew told me.
As The Lawyers Tell It
In his statement to the court, Campbell County Attorney Nathan Henkes emphasized the attack’s “absolutely egregious” nature as well as the signs of premeditation.
“The fact that Mrs. Smith survived — that there wasn’t something more significant to this — is really, truly a miracle in itself,” Henkes told reporters.
The prosecutor also stated that “there were definitely issues with” Tharles at home.
Public Defender Jonathan Foreman countered that Tharles has done well in jail without psychotropic medications for more than a year; he has never expressed a desire to harm his mother or family; and he simply wishes to avoid them.
“He’s shown no animosity toward his family,” Foreman said. “He does not want to be anywhere near them. They are his trigger. He knows what his trigger is and wants to avoid it.
Foreman also stated that Tharles Smith’s 4-H animals were his most valuable possessions.
“His family immediately sold all of his 4-H animals and published it in the newspaper” after Tharles was charged, Foreman stated. “You have a very hot and cold relationship here.” I’ve never witnessed this family dynamic before.”
Foreman requested that Healy impose a sentence of 20 to 30 years in prison, acknowledging that with good behavior, Tharles could face a parole board at around the 13-year mark.
Henkes instead asked the judge to sentence Tharles to 25 to 35 years in prison.
Tharles would receive credit for the 449 days he has already spent in jail.
The judge chose a 20-30-year sentence, citing the tension between Tharles’ reports of harrowing childhood abuse and the violent nature of the crime.
Healy said he wasn’t sure if Tharles’ mental health is so bad that he needs psychotropic medications, as Karla claimed in court.
“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,” Healy told me.
However, the judge added that the man claimed to have been fine without it while in jail.
Prior Interviews
The teen was charged as an adult last summer with attempted first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence.
The charge was later amended to attempted second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
The judge was unable to opt for a sentence of less than 20 years unless he was willing to go all the way down to probation, a quirk of minimum mandatory sentences with which Wyoming judges occasionally express frustration.
Tharles did not follow the house rules on the night of June 10, 2024, according to court documents and other interviews.
According to an evidentiary affidavit filed in his case, he waited until everyone in the house went to bed before removing an 8-inch blade knife from a magnetic holder, entering his mother’s room, leaping on her, and stabbing her in the upper left back.
“Why did you punch me?” Karla recalled asking when she awoke. She told Cowboy State Daily that she initially believed her son had punched her.
“No, you actually have a knife in your back,” Tharles replied, according to his mother’s interview. “I stabbed you.”
Family Shaken
Tharles was detained by Campbell County Sheriff’s personnel.
Karla was flown to Campbell County Health in Gillette, Wyoming, with the knife still protruding from her back, she said.
Karla said her 19-year-old autistic daughter was traumatized by the attack and the police response. The teen awoke to police flashing flashlights and a knife still protruding from her mother’s back.
At the hospital, doctors wondered if they would have to perform surgery to remove the knife.
But Campbell County Health surgeon Jake Rinker was able to extract it, Karla recalled.
It had gone through her scapula, broken two ribs, and punctured her lung, she claimed. Karla stated that a portion of the blanket that had been covering her went in with it, requiring doctors to cut the fabric out.
Rinker told police that the blade went two-thirds through Karla’s chest cavity.
Her lung collapsed, so medical personnel inserted a tube to reopen it. She spent two and a half days in the intensive care unit and four days total in the hospital, she said.
While Waiting For Deputies
Karla called 911 the night of the alleged attack, on June 10, 2024, after realizing she had been stabbed.
Tharles told police he wanted to leave her room because he didn’t want to watch his mother die. But Karla claimed she persuaded him to stay until authorities arrived.
In fact, Tharles held his mother while they waited, Foreman testified in court.
It took 45 minutes, but it felt like forever, she explained.
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.
