Kidnaped Boy Choked to Death While Gagged, Coroner Says

A kidnaped Northridge boy whose charred body was found in a Ventura County field choked to death while he was bound and gagged, an official said Thursday.

Ventura County Coroner Dr. F. Warren Lovell said 8-year-old Paul Bailly had vomited, possibly out of fear, at some point during his abduction last Friday but, because his mouth was gagged, he choked and died of asphyxia.

Lovell said the boy was dead at the time his body was set afire, because there was no soot in his nose or windpipe and no carbon monoxide in his blood.

Lovell said that a bruise on the boy’s neck indicated he may have been strangled. But he added that “it wasn’t a classic strangulation. It could have been. But I think it was something akin to . . . grabbing him around the neck.”

The boy’s body was found in a field near Simi Valley. A set of handcuffs lay nearby. The discovery came about four hours after the boy was apparently abducted from in front of Darby Avenue School in Northridge, where he attended a day-care program. Investigators said Gregory Scott Smith, 21, of Canoga Park, who was arrested Saturday, is the sole suspect, although he has not been charged in the murder.

Smith, who had been fired March 6 as a child-care aide at Darby, is being held without bail pending an arraignment hearing Monday. Through an attorney, Smith has denied involvement in the slaying.

Ventura County sheriff’s investigators said they are continuing to look into Smith’s background as a $6-an-hour child-care aide employed by the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn. latchkey program. Included in the investigation is a report that Smith brought handcuffs to one school last October, Sgt. Terry Hughes said.

Staff members of the program said that last Halloween, Smith came to the child-care center at Chatsworth Park School dressed in an Army-type camouflage outfit and carrying handcuffs. A supervisor told Smith that the handcuffs were inappropriate and ordered him to put them in his car.

“We consider it circumstantial evidence and it has been incorporated into our investigation,” Hughes said of the incident.

The sergeant said investigators believe the handcuffs found near Paul’s body belonged to Smith, but he declined to elaborate.

Investigators will review PTA records of any problems relating to Smith’s treatment of children at several facilities where he worked, Hughes said. PTA officials said this week that their written records include notations of at least two incidents in which Smith was criticized by superiors for improper behavior with Paul Bailly.

“We are aware of the documented activities between the victim and the suspect,” Hughes said. “We are looking for anything else about his behavior.”

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this story.