Prosecutors said 22 minutes of surveillance footage helped prove William Deandre-Kashawn Smith planned the fatal shooting.
JACKSON, Mich. — Surveillance video, cellphone records and vehicle data helped convict William Deandre-Kashawn Smith of killing Shi’Ana Gittens, leading a Jackson County judge to sentence him to life without parole in the 2024 bedroom shooting.
The case turned on a timeline prosecutors said showed planning before the gunfire and silence after a child called for help. Smith, 36, was found guilty April 2 after a four-day trial in Jackson County Circuit Court. Gittens, 31, was shot once in the head on Jan. 22, 2024, inside a Summit Township home where the couple’s children were sleeping nearby.
Jurors watched a 22-minute surveillance recording that prosecutors said showed Smith waiting outside the East McDevitt Avenue residence before entering. Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Kelsey Guernsey told jurors she did not speed up the footage because the length mattered. “I wanted everybody to think about how long he sat there,” Guernsey said. “That’s how long he had to think about what he was going to do.” Prosecutors paired the video with cellphone and vehicle records that they said tracked Smith’s movements before and after the killing.
The home was in Vandercook Lake, a census-designated place in Summit Township, about 40 miles west of Ann Arbor. Authorities said first responders were called for an unresponsive woman and found Gittens with a gunshot wound to the head. Prosecutors said Smith had entered the home at night, shot her once near the right ear and left as the bullet traveled through her neck. They said at least two of the children were near her when the shooting happened.
The evidence also included what happened after the shot. A 9-year-old boy found his mother on the floor next to her bed and called Smith. Guernsey told jurors the child was terrified, sobbing and begging his father to come home. Smith did not respond in a way that helped the child, prosecutors said. The boy eventually contacted his grandmother, Smith’s mother, who went to the home and called 911. A 6-year-old child also found Gittens, adding to the family impact described in court.
Defense attorney Andrew Kirkpatrick challenged the state’s proof by pointing to what investigators did not have. He said there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, no DNA on the shell casing and no recorded admission by Smith in texts, phone records or interviews. Kirkpatrick said the defense position was that no one could place Smith in the room at the needed moment. Smith also maintained his innocence at sentencing, telling the court that he loved Gittens and their children and believed he had been set up.
The jury found the state’s evidence strong enough to convict Smith of first-degree murder and felony firearms. The verdict made the sentence for first-degree murder mandatory under Michigan law. Guernsey said any judge facing those charges and conviction would have to impose life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain did so at the Thursday hearing and also addressed Smith in blunt terms about the killing and the prison term.
McBain said from the bench that Smith shot Gittens with a .28-caliber round while a daughter was in the bed with her. He said Smith had executed Gittens in the presence of two children and would die in prison. The judge’s comments followed victim-impact statements from Gittens’ family. Her sister said Smith had created “a living nightmare” for the children and described lasting harm that no court order could undo.
Gittens had given birth to the couple’s fourth child only weeks before she was killed, and prosecutors told jurors she was recovering from a cesarean section. That detail became part of the state’s account of the vulnerability inside the home that night. Guernsey later said the case was not only about phone data, car data and videos, but also about young children finding their mother after violence in the bedroom they shared with her.
Smith’s sentencing ended the first round of court proceedings, but his attorney said an appeal is planned. McBain said the defense had 42 days to challenge the verdict. Smith remains under a life-without-parole sentence while any appellate review moves forward.
Author note: Last updated June 23, 2026.