Abuse, Murder, and a Wrongful Conviction
Kelsey's mom, Raye Dawn Smith (Raye) divorced Kelsey's dad, Lance Briggs, before Kelsey was born. Raye suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of Lance, and Kelsey's older sibling detached from the uterus and died after a blow to Raye's stomach.
Kelsey was happy and healthy during the first two years of her life with no allegations of abuse. Raye started dating Mike Porter in the fall of 2004, at the same time that Kathie Briggs, Kelsey's paternal grandmother was awarded grandparent visitation. Bruises began appearing on Kelsey, and Raye assumed it was Kathie or that Kelsey had a medical problem and Kathie assumed it was Raye.
In January, 2005, Kelsey broke her clavicle reportedly after a fall from her crib. On Kelsey's next visit with Kathie, after Kathie and Lance Briggs had Kelsey for over four hours, they noticed bruises or a rash on Kelsey's bottom and took her to the emergency room. The police said it wasn't abuse, and DHS said it was. Judge Craig Key ruled to have Kelsey removed from Raye's home and placed Kelsey in the custody of Kathie Briggs after fingers pointed at Raye as the perpetrator for the bruises. Raye took several classes, and worked toward getting Kelsey back. She completed everything DHS told her to do, and took extra steps to regain custody of Kelsey.
In April of 2005, the same month Raye married Mike Porter, Kelsey sprained her ankle at the zoo while with her aunt. Raye took Kelsey to the doctor and the doctor confirmed a sprain. Raye then took Kelsey to Kathie's home with a doctor's note. When Raye picked Kelsey up four days later, Kelsey wasn't walking. Kathie said Kelsey took a few steps in Wal-Mart at the beginning of the week and didn't walk anymore. Raye took Kelsey to the doctor and he put her legs in casts. He said her legs had stress or toddler fractures from overcompensation for the sprained ankle. Raye took Kelsey back to Kathie's home and Kathie took Kelsey to Children's Hospital, which is known for ruling injuries as abuse. Kathie told the doctor that Raye had abused Kelsey, according to a witness. The doctor made a note of the alleged abuse and took off the casts. When Kathie reported the abuse to DHS, for several reasons DHS looked at Kathie as a suspect in Kelsey's legs being broken--not that it was abuse, but that the breaks happened while Kelsey was in Kathie’s care and she didn’t seek medical attention for Kelsey but Kathie had taken Kelsey to the emergency room for a bump on her nose in a previous incident. This, along with Kathie’s lack of cooperation, made Kathie look suspicious. DHS removed Kelsey from Kathie's home and put her in their care (with the maternal grandmother, Gayla Smith), and allowed Kathie and Raye supervised visitation. Workers noted how Kelsey responded lovingly toward Raye Dawn and acted out toward Kathie. At Gayla's home, Kelsey thrived and she started to gain back the weight and the hair she had lost while in Kathie's care (according to DHS, Kelsey’s hair fell out in clumps while she was with the Briggs).
Kathie reported that Kelsey had been hurt on three occasions while she was in Kathie’s care—March 10th a sore on the side of her hand from a dog bite; March 25th a bruise on her shin; April 18th a cat scratch. These injuries are not listed in the OCCY report because unlike Raye, Kathie didn’t report Kelsey’s injuries to DHS. Kelsey also began experiencing night terrors while in Kathie’s home. Kathie reported two occasions this occurred.
In June, 2005, the judge ruled that Raye had completed all the necessary requirements to regain custody of Kelsey. DHS wanted Kelsey phased in. The judge placed Kelsey in Raye's home immediately with three services watching her progress and well-being--nobody appealed. Kathie later stated that her attorney told her she could appeal, but she couldn’t afford it, and Lance had to fix his truck so he didn’t have the money. DHS didn’t object to Kelsey being returned to Raye, a worker stated that she just didn’t want Kelsey returned to Kathie.
After the June hearing, Kathie gave up her visits with Kelsey. She had been reprimanded at her final supervised visit for talking on the phone instead of spending time with Kelsey and at the June hearing, DHS’s review of Kathie and Lance and their lack of cooperation upset Kathie. Ashley (Kelsey’s stepmother) told DHS workers that Kathie wouldn’t be back for a visit because she didn’t like what the workers had to say about her. Kathie then sent out hundreds of emails asking for Lance’s name to be removed from the deprived child petition so that he could have visitation with Kelsey without supervision. (This email has been promoted as being an email to save Kelsey, in fact, it was all about Lance.)
In August, 2005, a drunk driver hit Mike Porter's truck and left the scene of the accident, totaling the truck with Mike, Raye, and Kelsey in it. The truck’s frame was bent, the glass shattered where Kelsey was sitting, and it sustained over $14,000 in damage. The man who hit them was arrested just a few blocks from the scene of the accident for driving under the influence. In the accident, Kelsey suffered lacerations and injuries that have been shown in pictures and videos on the Internet as abuse.
After the accident, Kelsey started to deteriorate. (Ashley was given a visit with Kelsey at the end of August and Kathie showed up at the visit with her video camera to take pictures of Kelsey’s injuries.) On September 8, 2005, the DA and Kelsey's doctor asked that all paternal visitation be stopped (even though they only had one visit since June) so that Kelsey could be monitored in one place. The paternal family was sent notice of the hearing, but nobody showed up. Kathie sent notice on September 6, 2005 that her family would not attend the hearing. In the media, she has said that in August she knew that Kelsey was dying. In her email declining an invitation to the hearing, she “conceded” the fight. At the hearing, the DA and Kelsey's attorney asked for all charges against Raye to be dropped since Kelsey was doing so well in Raye’s home, and the judge reminded them of the Ryan Luke Law that says that services are to remain in the child's home for six months after a child’s return to her parents. Kelsey remained in DHS custody and the services remained in Kelsey's home.
On October 11, 2005, Raye left the home between 2:30pm and 2:45pm to pick up her step-daughter from school, which was a minimum of a 36-minute round trip. Mike Porter was expecting a friend to pick up some tires, and Kelsey was sleeping, so Raye went to pick up the child and left Kelsey in bed with Mike Porter watching after her. When Raye Dawn returned home at approximately 3:37pm, an ambulance was there (the ambulance had arrived at 3:27pm) and Kelsey was unresponsive. Kelsey died that day. A second autopsy verified that she had been sexually assaulted. Mike Porter secretly made numerous calls to the medical examiner’s office the day after Kelsey’s death, upset that they were doing a full autopsy and begging for the results. Raye’s family thought Kelsey’s death was from a seizure.
Raye has been convicted of enabling child abuse with a recommended sentence of 27 years. The district attorney reportedly did not want to press charges against her, but did so because of public pressure. Mike Porter was offered a plea of 30-years for enabling child abuse after Lance, Kelsey’s father, requested it from the district attorney. Mike took the plea and the charges of sexual assault and murder were dropped.
Raye shared a special bond with Kelsey. She would have never allowed anyone to harm her child. The District Attorney, Richard Smothermon, said Raye should have known Mike was abusing Kelsey. There were three services in and out of Raye's home on an almost daily basis and the trained services didn't know. How could Raye?
Mike Porter’s daughter told a school counselor and investigators that she witnessed her father abuse Kelsey on two occasions. Both occasions were in their new home—a home they moved into only a week before Kelsey died. It’s clear that Mike Porter abused and murdered Kelsey. Because Mike Porter wasn’t taken to trial, nobody knows how many times or over what period of time the abuse took place. The two instances of abuse that were documented as abuse occurred in January, 2005 and April, 2005. Many people, including Raye and the Briggs, had been with Kelsey just before the January incident. It’s been proven that Kelsey was with Kathie in the April incident with Kelsey’s legs (see RayeDawnSmith.com [coming soon] for the medical documentation that proves this and the state’s statement that Raye nor Mike Porter had anything to do with Kelsey’s broken legs).
The media has been lied to and those lies were passed on to an unsuspecting public. Raye Dawn Smith has been wrongfully convicted in an unfair trial in front of a jury that had been influenced by both the media and propaganda throughout the Internet that belonged to Kathie Briggs and her supporters.
The truth shall set Raye Dawn Smith FREE.