The past nine years as a felony prosecutor has convinced me that an unending supply of humanity is willing to lie, cheat, steal, maim, or kill for the smallest reasons or for no reason at all. I had begun to think that my conscience could no longer be shocked, regardless of the facts and circumstances of any case I prosecuted. The CPS investigator invited Investigator Pawley to a local high school to interview the girls with her.
The investigators interviewed the girls separately, starting with the two year-old twins, Jane and Joan, then their year-old sister, Kate. From the moment the interview with Jane Smith began, Investigator Paw-ley knew that this was not an ordinary case. Jane acknowledged almost immediately that she knew she was there because of her father.
She said that he had been having her and Joan take naked pictures of each other on a digital camera and provide them to him as a form of punishment. The girls had initially refused his request, which began when the family lived in Iowa in and , but Smith continued to ask until they finally relented. From then on each time that she or her sister wanted permission to do something or got into trouble, Smith requested nude photographs, even after the family minus their mother, Shelley, who was serving time in a federal penitentiary in Iowa moved to Parker County in the spring of , when the twins were This time, the punishment escalated.
Instead of naked pictures, Smith told the twins that they would have to perform oral sex on him as their punishment. Jane refused, but Joan gave in. Later, as we met with the girls in preparation for trial, it became apparent to us that, as with most twins, the two had distinctive personalities. Throughout the summer Smith asked her to perform oral sex on him, and Jane continued to refuse but finally agreed to masturbate Smith to stop his repeated requests for oral sex.
These masturbatory incidents occurred off and on for weeks, during which Smith would digitally penetrate his daughter. By the end of summer she had begun performing oral sex on him, and he had begun doing the same to her. Her sexual acts with Smith continued until February when her mother returned from prison.
