By Sarah Richardson
After several extensions and delays due to COVID-19 concerns, Edward Alexander Smith-Allen was sentenced in Greenbrier County Circuit Court on Jan. 31 for the June 2019 murder of Alaisia M. Smith in Dorie Miller Park in Lewisburg.
According to the plea agreement, Smith-Allen pled no contest to one count of voluntary manslaughter and guilty to one count of wanton endangerment. He was originally indicted in Oct. 2019 with one charge of murder.
Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Dent said the event was “a tragedy, not just for the family, but for this community as a whole,” before adjudging Smith-Allen as guilty for both charges.
Smith-Allen was sentenced to 15 years for voluntary manslaughter and five years for wanton endangerment, the maximum for each charge. The two charges will be served consecutively for a total of 20 years in prison. He has already served 959 days at Southern Regional Jail in Raleigh County.
The criminal complaint from the shooting states Smith-Allen was “playing with [a] gun and pointing it at people.” One witness “said that the manner in which [Smith-Allen] was playing with the gun made her so uncomfortable that she left” and “before she left, the magazine had been ejected and two bullets fell out.” The bullets were “put back in the magazine and the magazine inserted into the pistol.” The complaint then states the witness told Smith-Allen “to put the gun down” but he “pulled the trigger and shot the victim” while “pointing the gun at the victim.”
“All of the witnesses said the shooting was accidental,” reads the complaint.
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