The Georgia Supreme Court last week upheld the murder conviction of a Forsyth County woman in the 2010 house fire that killed her husband.
Jill Adaire Smith was convicted by a Forsyth County jury on malice murder and first-degree arson charges in February 2012 and was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison. Her husband, Michael Smith, was found dead in the master bathroom at the couple’s home in south Forsyth on October 22, 2010, after a night of drinking and socializing with his wife and a second man with whom Jill Smith was said to have been having an affair.
During the trial, a fire investigator testified that an accelerant was used to set the blaze. Also, the state presented evidence that Smith had lost her business a few months before the blaze and stood to gain over a half-million-dollars in insurance money if her husband died accidentally. Smith, however, never admitted setting the fire. Her attorney argued on appeal that evidence used to prove her guilt was circumstantial and that the state never proved who started the blaze.
The man who prosecutors say Jill Smith was having an affair with, co-defendant Peter Delaney, was acquitted of all charges in the case.
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