The victim’s family told the court that Shi’Ana Gittens’ children now carry the deepest wounds from the killing.
JACKSON, Mich. — Two young children found their mother after she was shot in a Summit Township bedroom, and their father was later sentenced to life without parole for killing her, Jackson County court records and testimony showed.
The children’s discovery became the emotional center of the case against William Deandre-Kashawn Smith, 36, who was convicted April 2 of first-degree murder and felony firearms. Shi’Ana Gittens, 31, was the mother of Smith’s four children. She was killed Jan. 22, 2024, only weeks after giving birth to the couple’s youngest child and while recovering from a cesarean section.
After the shooting, a 9-year-old boy found Gittens lying on the floor near her bed at the East McDevitt Avenue home in Vandercook Lake. Prosecutors said he called Smith in the middle of the night and begged him to come home. Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Kelsey Guernsey told jurors the boy was terrified and sobbing. She said Smith did nothing to help. The child later reached his grandmother, Smith’s mother, who rushed to the residence and called 911.
A 6-year-old child also found Gittens, according to courtroom accounts. Prosecutors said some of the children had been sleeping near their mother when Smith entered the home and shot her once in the head. The bullet struck near her right ear and exited through her neck. Medical workers and deputies were sent to the home for an unresponsive woman, but the case quickly became a homicide investigation after they found the gunshot wound.
Guernsey later said the children’s role in discovering Gittens gave the case a weight beyond the digital evidence. She said investigators had cellphones, vehicle information and videos, but the human damage was clear in the fact that two children found their mother. At sentencing, Gittens’ sister addressed Smith directly and said he had created “a living nightmare” for her niece and nephew. The statement echoed the prosecution’s argument that the crime extended trauma into the next generation of the family.
Smith was not convicted on the children’s statements alone. Jurors also viewed surveillance video showing him outside the home before the shooting. Prosecutors said the footage covered 22 minutes from his arrival to the moment he went inside. Guernsey told the jury she let the video run in full so jurors could consider how much time Smith had to think before entering. Cellphone and car data supported the state’s timeline, and Smith was arrested about five miles northwest of the home.
The defense said the prosecution had not proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Defense attorney Andrew Kirkpatrick argued that there was no eyewitness who saw Smith fire the gun, no DNA on the shell casing and no confession in text messages or phone records. He said the state lacked physical evidence directly tying Smith to the room at the time of the shot. Smith repeated that position in his own words at sentencing, saying he loved Gittens and his children and did not understand how he was in that situation.
The jury sided with prosecutors after four days of trial. Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain then imposed life in prison without the possibility of parole, the required punishment for the first-degree murder conviction. McBain told Smith that he had shot Gittens while their daughter was in the bed and said Smith would never have to worry about parole because he would die in prison. The judge’s remarks underscored the court’s finding that the murder was deliberate and final.
Outside the sentence itself, Guernsey said attention now turns to the children and the relatives raising them. She said Gittens’ sisters and family were committed to raising the children with the energy their mother would have wanted. The children’s names were not made central in public reporting, but their ages and actions became part of the court record because they showed how the killing was discovered and how quickly the family was pulled into the aftermath.
The legal case is not fully finished. Kirkpatrick said Smith intends to appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, and McBain said the defense had 42 days to challenge the verdict. For now, Smith remains sentenced to life without parole, while Gittens’ family continues caring for the four children left behind.
Author note: Last updated June 23, 2026.