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Murder charge against suspended Hokie player Etute is elevated to grand jury

Mike Gangloff and Mike Niziolek The Roanoke Times 18 hrs ago

CHRISTIANSBURG — A Montgomery County grand jury will consider a second-degree murder charge against suspended Hokie linebacker Isimemen David Etute. ... Judge Gordon Saunders certified the charge to a grand jury at Etute’s preliminary hearing on Thursday. The grand jury is scheduled to decide Oct. 26 whether Etute should be tried in the county’s Circuit Court.

The witnesses at Thursday’s hearing in General District Court were three Blacksburg police detectives who added details to the public description of Etute’s final encounter with restaurant project manager Jerry Paul Smith. ... Etute, 18, is accused of killing Smith, 40, in Smith’s downtown Blacksburg apartment on Memorial Day. Attorneys said Thursday that the two men connected through the Tinder app and met for oral sex on April 10, then again on May 31.

But in April, Etute thought that he was meeting a woman, not a man, witnesses and Etute’s defense attorney said Thursday. And in May, Etute wanted to see who it was he’d been with. ... On Thursday, police testified that although Etute entered Smith’s apartment alone, he arrived at the building at 119 N. Main St. with two friends — who were not identified Thursday.

Other details from the detectives’ testimony and defense attorney Jimmy Turk of Radford’s cross-examination included that after Etute and Smith had oral sex on April 10, Smith paid Etute $50; that a detective recognized Smith’s body because Smith had been a defendant or witness in prior cases; and that police found a knife between Smith’s mattress and box springs. ... In June, a spokesperson for Smith’s family described him as a proud, openly gay man.

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Suspended Virginia Tech football player appears in court on second-degree murder charge

Elise McCue, news contributor 3 hrs ago

A Montgomery County judge certified on Sept. 23 a charge of second-degree murder of Blacksburg resident Jerry Paul Smith against Isimemen David Etute, suspended Virginia Tech football player.

According to, Etute and Smith had first established contact over the dating app Tinder in April 2021. Smith, who allegedly claimed to be a woman named “Angie Renee,” offered oral sex to Etute, who agreed and met up with Smith under these pretenses for the first time on April 10, 2021. It was during their second encounter on May 31, 2021, that Etute discovered Smith’s identity and allegedly killed him in his apartment on North Main Street in Blacksburg.

As the courtroom stood, the families of both the defendant and victim entered and were seated on opposite sides of the aisle. The judge called upon three detectives as witnesses to share details of the encounter between Etute and Smith.

Detective Heather Rose-Semple, who works in the crime scene processing unit of the Blacksburg Police Department, said that she was called in to check on Smith at his home by his family. When she arrived, she described “bloody footwear” tracked throughout the halls and down the stairs. Smith was found on the floor beside his bed with severe trauma to the face and head and blood splattered on the wall behind him.

The second witness was Detective Mike Czernicki, who conducted part of the investigation at the scene of the crime and attended the victim’s autopsy. Czernicki said that he was able to confirm Smith’s identity upon first seeing him because of having at least four previous encounters with him through Czernicki’s work.

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