Gay-sex Delco killer spared death penalty

He laughed, he cried and he dodged the death penalty.

Bill Smithson's tumultuous 43-year existence was on display yesterday in a Delaware County courtroom as his closest friends and relatives took the witness stand to convince a jury that their son, their brother, their drinking buddy deserved to live.

What emerged was a complex portrait of a newly convicted murderer: an industrious, sexually conflicted salesman who chased the American dream, only to find a needle full of crystal methamphetamine in his arm and the corpse of a South Dakota college student in his basement.

And when the character witnesses were done testifying, Smithson finally spoke up for himself - something he declined to do last week when he was on trial for killing 23-year-old Jason Shephard.

Smithson, a Darby native and former regional manager for scoreboard-manufacturer Daktronics, didn't admit to murdering Shephard, the company intern whose decomposing body was found in Smithson's Thornbury home two years ago. Nor did he tell Shephard's parents that he was sorry.

But Smithson, a Monsignor Bonner High grad who spent a decade living with his grandmother in Southwest Philly, played up his redeeming qualities, and apparently there were enough of them to keep him alive. The jury that convicted him Friday of first-degree murder yesterday chose to sentence him to life in prison over death by injection.

"I always wanted a nice house, a nice car, 2.3 kids," Smithson said with a smile.

Smithson said his life took a nose-dive several years ago when he began snorting meth. Eventually, he said, "somebody wanted to inject me, and, I shamefully say, I let them." He was hooked, partying for almost a week straight with no sleep.

He went from the beloved uncle - the "rock" of the family, as his sister-in-law described him - to the meth head that hosted wild sex parties.

On the night of Sept. 18, 2006, police say, Smithson picked up Shephard from a local hotel, slipped him the date-rape drug GHB, then strangled him when Shephard resisted his sexual advances. He held a ligature around the intern's neck for up to two minutes after he lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, ensuring his death, a doctor testified.

Defense attorney G. Guy Smith tried to raise reasonable doubt - a former St. Joseph's University administrator has admitted to being in Smithson's house the night Shephard was killed - but the jury didn't buy it.

It was never about whether Smithson was guilty or innocent of murder, but whether it was first degree or second degree, two jurors told the Daily News.

"I think it was the defendant's own admissions that did him in," juror No. 8 said of the thinly veiled confessions Smithson made to an ex-boyfriend and his niece.

In voting to spare his life, however, the jury considered his lack of a criminal background and the effects the drugs had on his behavior, two jurors said.

"We are grateful that Jason was able to have a voice in this and that he was understood," said Shephard's sister, Karla Afshari. "Now, we are able to focus on how he lived and what he's done for our family, and not how he died." *