Oviedo, FL: Oviedo woman who says estranged husband was raping her is charged with murder

Anita Smithey is free on $100,000 bond

By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel
5:19 p.m. EDT, September 22, 2010


SANFORD — Prosecutors have filed second-degree murder charges against a 42-year-old Oviedo woman who says she grabbed a gun and fought back while her estranged husband was raping her.

Anita Smithey is free on $100,000 bond.

She shot and killed her estranged husband, Robert Cline III, 41, on May 4 in the bed they were sharing.

Smithey told Oviedo police that although they were separated, she and Cline got together for sex every Monday evening, according to her arrest report.

The night of the killing, she told them, Cline had come to her house, they'd had a drink and sex but then he wouldn't leave.

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He grabbed her, she told police, pulled her back into bed, held something – she thought it was a knife – to her throat and began raping her, she said. He put away the weapon but would not stop raping her, she said.

She pulled a 38-caliber handgun and pointed it at his chest, according to her arrest report.

He leaned forward and the gun went off, she told police. He still didn't get off her, she said, so she pulled the trigger a second time.

Before she went for help, she stabbed herself in the belly so she could claim self-defense, she eventually told police.

On Tuesday, the state attorney's office charged her with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. That second charge presumably was for stabbing herself and saying Cline did it.

Assistant State Attorney James Carter would not say what evidence prompted the state to file charges. Earlier, Oviedo Police Lt. Mike Beavers said Smithey was arrested because of her inconsistent stories and evidence at the scene.

Smithey and Cline had been married three years. They had been separated about three months.

Six months before the shooting, police went to their home after she called for help, saying she had tried several times to call 911 following an argument, but he kept snatching the phone from her hands.

Prosecutors opted not to charge Cline with domestic violence.

Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6394.

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