Warm Springs woman pleads guilty to shooting aunt and uncle
Published 6:30 am Thursday, February 8, 2018
- Rhyan Leigh Smith (U.S. Attorney's Office/Submitted photo)
A Warm Springs woman pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland to two counts of assault with the intent to commit murder for shooting her aunt and uncle in 2016.
Rhyan Leigh Smith, 26, will be sentenced May 21. She faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.
Smith was arrested March 16, 2016 after Warm Springs police and FBI agents responded to a shooting at a house on U.S. Highway 26 in Warm Springs and found Smith hiding in sagebrush near the house. Her aunt and uncle, Bernadette Smith and Zach Chambers, were critically injured with multiple gunshot wounds.
Smith had an AR-15 assault rifle and investigators later found a rifle bag with multiple AR-15 magazines, loose ammunition and a 9mm pistol in a vehicle at the house, according to a release from the Oregon District of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to court documents, Smith had arrived at the house where her father, aunt and uncle lived at about 2 a.m. the day of the shooting and spoke briefly with her father, Matthew Smith. Chambers told an investigator that at about 8 a.m., Rhyan Smith knocked on the door of the bedroom he shares with his wife. They talked for a few minutes before Chambers told her he was going back to bed. When he started to shut the door, he said he saw a muzzle flash from a pistol she was holding. He was shot five times and suffered a broken leg, according to court documents.
Bernadette Smith told investigators that after hearing a gunshot, she came out the bathroom attached to the bedroom and saw Rhyan Smith shooting Chambers. Bernadette Smith tried to stop the shooting, but Rhyan Smith shot her several times. She suffered a broken arm.
Smith also pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime.