Stabbing tears apart family

WARREN — Jeffrey Smith’s eyes well with tears as he reflects on how the stabbing death of a brother at the hands of another brother could have been prevented.

If only tough love had been the early rule within the family dynamics, Smith says, his 29-year-old brother, Carl, would be alive and his 46-year-old brother, Charles, or “Chuck,” would not be jailed for the death.

“He’s nothing to me now,” Jeffrey said of his older brother. He refers to him as “The Murderer.”

Jeffrey said he sure doesn’t want to see him again.

“There’s emptiness” in the one-time family home on Kinsman Street on the northwest end, he said. “It used to be so full of life. It was always a good place to be, but all the life got sucked out of it.”

Jeffrey, 44, said Chuck’s addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol finally caused their mother, Lanell Smith, to throw him out. Chuck’s desire to remain home festered to the point where he “snapped,” leading to Carl’s death.

Read more about this family tragedy in Sunday’s Vindicator and on Vindy.com