A traumatized Ohio boy who watched in horror
as his mother stabbed his father to death wrote
a heartrending letter asking a judge not to
release her from prison.
"Dear Judge Peeler, I feel that my mom should
stay in prison because I seen her stab my dad
clean through the heart with my sister in his
arms," little Bradyn Takach wrote. "That took a
big amount of happiness out of my and my
sister's lives."
The 10-year-old from Middletown, who was 4
when he witnessed the terrifying scene at
home, handwrote the two-page letter to be read
in court next week at his mother's early parole
hearing, WLWT exclusively reported.
It's been nearly six years, but the wounds are
still fresh for Bradyn who lives in fear of his
mother, Shannon Smith.
Bradyn Takach, 10, poured his heart out in an
emotional letter he wrote to a judge, asking for his
mom to be kept in prison.
"Life for me would be 10 times better if mom
didn't kill my dad," he said in the letter to Judge
Robert Peeler.
Smith was convicted in 2010 of voluntary
manslaughter and tampering with evidence in
the fatal 2009 stabbing of the children's father
Robert Takach II.
The children's grandmother, who now raises
them, told WLWT that Smith plunged a steak
knife into his heart, pulled it out, "washed it
clean" and put it in the sink.
Shannon Smith stabbed Robert Takach to death in
January 2009 in Warren County, Ohio.
Bradyn said the stabbing has changed him and his
little sister.
"It was like letting the water out of a dam,"
Patty Todd, the victim's mother, said through
tears.
Robert Takach was 25 when he died.
Smith has served nearly six years of her 10-
year sentence.
Bradyn's mother Shannon Smith was convicted in
the 2009 fatal stabbing of the boy's father Robert
Takach.
"I think it would be better for me and my sister
if my mom would stay in prison because I'm
afraid of her," Bradyn wrote. "I have seen what
she did to my dad."
Smith is set to appear for a judicial release
hearing on Nov. 4.
The judge who handed down her sentence had
ripped her in court several years ago, calling
her a “violent person” who has “shattered the
lives of four generations of this family.”
“It’s indescribable what happened here,” Peeler
said at the time, according to Dayon Daily News.
“It is a tragedy for everyone in this room that is
here on both sides.”
Posted by: Philip Ochika