Man kills wife, self during violent spree

He also kidnapped stepmom, took a car and led police on chase

Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

HICKORY - A man with a history of violence fatally shot his wife and killed himself Friday after a rampage that included a kidnapping, carjacking and chase.

Christopher George Smith, 37, shot himself in the head about 10 a.m. during a shootout with Hickory police inside Summit Door and Hardware, a business on 19th Street S.E. Police said at least one of the officer's bullets hit Smith before he died.

Two hours earlier, his wife, Catherine Stearns Smith, 31, was found shot in the head and lying in the street near the business, where she worked. She was taken to Catawba Valley Medical Center, where she died Friday afternoon, said Hickory police Lt. Hank Guess.

She was a mother of two boys, ages 2 and 6, and loved playing with her children at the family's Lake Hickory vacation cottage, said her brother-in-law Mike McGhinnis.

Friday's shootout ended a violent morning that began about 6:30 a.m., when Christopher Smith kidnapped his stepmother, Roena Setzer Smith, and forced her to drive to him around Hickory, Guess said.

One stop, he said, was at McGhinnis' house on 32nd Avenue N.W., where Smith broke into the home and locked his stepmother in the basement. Authorities believe Smith had gone to the home to look for McGhinnis, who co-owns Summit Door and Hardware and had banned Smith from coming onto the business' property.

Smith's stepmother escaped from the basement briefly before Smith caught her and forced her to drive to the business on 19th Street S.E., where he waited for his wife to come to work, Guess said.

When Catherine Smith arrived, her husband shot her, abandoned her bleeding body in the middle of the dead-end road and fled alone in her van. Another employee found Catherine Smith at 8:07 a.m. and called the authorities, Guess said.

Nearly two hours passed before police heard anything more about Christopher Smith.

Then, at 9:50 a.m., police in Long View, a small city adjacent to Hickory, received a report that a man had carjacked a 1990 Mercedes sports car from German Auto Service on U.S. 70, Guess said.

Bryan Sigmon, a 21-year-old mechanic at the shop, had just finished working on the Mercedes and was backing it out of the garage, he said, when a man slammed his hand against the open window and held a revolver to his face.

"He said, 'Get out of the car, I'm taking it,'" Sigmon recalled.

Sigmon said the man hopped in and sped onto northbound U.S. 70.

Police spotted the Mercedes, driven by Smith, at Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street S.W. in Hickory and chased it through the city. At one point, police said, Smith fired several shots at pursuing officers.

The chase ended at Summit Door and Hardware, where Smith ran into the building and encountered several employees. Smith fired at least one shot in the business, Guess said, but no one else was injured.

Three Hickory officers followed Smith into the building and ordered him to drop his weapon, police said. He turned toward them with his gun, and a Hickory officer fired, striking Smith.

After being shot, Smith went into another room, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Guess said.

The couple was estranged, Guess said, and Catherine Smith had taken out a domestic violence protection order in April against her husband, whose criminal record included convictions for robbery with a dangerous weapon and escape from a state prison.


Catherine Smith, a Newton-Conover High School graduate who would have celebrated her 32nd birthday Thursday, was a strong-willed and independent woman who would do anything for her family, McGhinnis said.

But it was her children, he said, that mattered to her the most.

"She spent a lot of time with her boys," he said. "That's what she loved doing."

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