Accused of killing his inlaws and terrorizing his wife, Charlotte man faces death penalty

After Vurnel Smith was charged this summer with terrorizing his wife and beating his in-laws to death, he covered his face with a Bible as he was led away to jail.

On Thursday in a Mecklenburg courtroom, the shackled 41-year-old Charlotte man had nowhere to hide as his prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Minton, announced that his office is seeking the death penalty against him.

Capital murder cases have become increasingly rare in North Carolina due to a series of legal challenges to the death penalty, the costs involved, and what is seen as a growing reluctance by juries to enact the ultimate punishment.

In Mecklenburg County, prosecutors reserve the designation for crimes that, according to District Attorney Andrew Murray, “shock the conscience of the community.”

Smith becomes the third murder defendant this year to clear that bar. He is charged with two counts of murder, kidnapping, rape, assault and other charges in connection with a violent domestic siege that went on for days.

Five days after abandoning his home in late July, Smith surprised his wife as she returned to the house one night. Police say he knocked her unconscious with a pipe and then terrorized her for the better part of two days.

At some point, authorities say Smith, who according to jail record is more than 6 feet tall and weighs 250 pounds, drove to Red Clay Lane in north Charlotte where he killed Jacqueline Gordon-White, 65, and Rufus Gordon, 69, with his bare hands. The older woman’s body was found in her home. Gordon was later discovered in a car that Smith’s wife used to escape to a nearby hospital, unaware that her father’s body had been stashed in the trunk.

Smith disappeared for five days before he turned himself in.

“Honestly, the brutality of what occurred, I don’t think there’s any justification he could give us or anybody as to what happened,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Capt. Chris Dozier told WSOC at the time of Smith’s arrest.

In the only other pending capital case, Curtis Atkinson and his girlfriend Nikkia Cooper are charged with the April murders of Atkinson’s parents and the kidnapping of his 11-year-old niece, who was later found alive in Washington, D.C. Atkinson is scheduled to be back in court in February.

No one has been put to death in North Carolina since 2006.

The last Mecklenburg County inmate executed, Elias Syriani of Charlotte, died by lethal injection in 2005. He was accused of stabbing his wife with a screwdriver almost 30 times while their 10-year-old son watched.

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Accused of killing his inlaws and terrorizing his wife, Charlotte man faces death penalty."