Dallas, TX: Police: Years of domestic violence ends with husband shooting wife to death in UT Southwestern parking garage

A couple’s violent and tumultuous marriage ended Tuesday night in a UT Southwestern parking garage when her estranged husband fatally shot her as she was leaving work, according to police records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

The victim’s husband, Ferdinand Smith, has been booked into the Dallas County jail. Smith, 41, is being held on a charge of murder in the death of his wife, Karen Cox Smith, who worked as an executive assistant at UT Southwestern.

He was also being held on felony family violence assault accusing him of attacking his 40-year-old wife in December. It was unclear when the warrant was issued and why he had not been taken into custody on the warrant prior to the murder.

Lewis Horton, Karen Cox Smith’s stepfather, said he and his wife had feared for years that the couple’s marriage would end with Karen’s death.

“As long as I’ve known him, he’s always had that nasty streak in him,” Horton said. “Domestic violence is nothing to play with.”

Karen Smith had been an employee at UT Southwestern since August 2010.

Karen Cox Smith and Ferdinand Smith were high school sweethearts, who moved to the Dallas area more than two decades ago.

Violence between the couple goes back to at least 1999 when he was accused of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against his wife. He received 10 years of deferred adjudication probation in that case. He successfully completed the probation in 2009, leaving him without a conviction in the case.

The couple’s three children, ages 12, 14 and 18, had been witnesses to the ongoing violence, Horton said.

“They saw him hitting her and they saw him strangling her and the only they could do was just sit there and cry,” Horton said.

About a year and half ago, she left her husband because he had badly beaten her, Horton said.

She and the couple’s three boys came to live with Horton and his wife in Dallas. Horton said they stayed about four months before moving into a house nearby on Danieldale Road.

But Karen Smith continued to see her husband, who was living in an apartment in Duncanville, her stepfather said.

“She was telling us that it was because of the kids,” Horton said. “She didn’t want to break up the family. And we sat down and talked to her for like five hours and said, ‘Your life is more important. Leave him. Divorce him.”

The violence further escalated on Dec. 10 when, authorities say, Ferdinand Smith attacked his estranged wife at her home. She told police that her attacker choked her until she was unconscious.

After the incident, Horton said, his stepdaughter came to his home with a “busted lip.”

“I said, ‘Did he hit you?’ ” Horton said. “She said, ‘Yes, and I said, ‘I’m going over there to take care of this, and she begged me not to.’ ”

According to police records, Ferdinand Smith approached his wife in a university parking garage.

He later told detectives that he went to his wife’s work and waited outside the parking garage for her to get off work. He told police that he confronted her and began arguing with her about their “marital problems.”

“The suspect said he became enraged and shot and killed the complainant with his duty weapon that he uses as a security officer on his job,” the records state.

Officers who responded to a report that there had been shots fired conducted a floor search of the parking garage before finding Karen Cox Smith lying on the parking lot on the floor. She had been shot multiple times in the head and upper body in what is believed to be the first homicide on the university campus in three decades. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to police records, detectives quickly learned about the December incident and police went to his Lancaster apartment, where he was taken into custody about 3:40 a.m. Wednesday on the family violence warrant in the December case.

Ferdinand Smith worked at Faith Family Academy in Oak Cliff for several years, serving as a security guard at the early childhood center.

Superintendent Mollie Savage said security personnel like Smith “are there to keep the bad people away.” That’s why his arrest came as such a surprise.

“This is all very unexpected,” Savage said. “I would not have seen this coming in a million years. We’re all in mourning.”

Savage said she had seen Karen Smith around at staff Christmas parties and she sometimes went to the school to bring him lunch.

The charter schools that Savage oversees conduct the same background checks that other school districts do.