Sadism Signs in Killing of Boy, 8, Cited : Courts: Testimony in Gregory Scott Smith’s penalty trial likens the evidence to that in many similar cases.

A psychologist testified Thursday that Gregory Scott Smith’s kidnap, rape and murder of 8-year-old Paul Bailly had all the earmarks of premeditated sexual sadism.

Christopher Hatcher, a San Francisco expert in child abduction cases, testified in the penalty trial in Ventura County Superior Court that evidence in Paul’s death resembles evidence in dozens of other child slayings that he has analyzed.

Hatcher testified that such killers have told him that they kidnap young boys and girls to act out violent sexual fantasies that may leave the victims dead.

“They’ll say that whatever happens to this person as a result of this is not really as important to them as the fulfillment of their fantasy,” Hatcher testified.

If the victim dies, “this is a significant inconvenience, that’s how they characterize it,” he said.

Smith, 23, pleaded guilty in October to charges that he kidnaped, raped and murdered the Northridge boy and then burned his body on March 23, 1990, near Simi Valley.

Smith had been fired 2 1/2 weeks earlier from his job as a day-care aide at a Northridge latchkey program after Paul and other children there complained that he had treated them roughly.

Paul disappeared on the morning of March 23 after his mother dropped him off at the latchkey program at Darby Avenue Elementary School.

Witnesses have testified that Paul was handcuffed, gagged with four to five layers of duct tape wrapped around his head, sodomized and strangled. His face and lower body then were doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

Hatcher testified in general terms about cases of children abducted for sexual gratification, then compared them with evidence from Paul’s murder as Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory Totten showed him several items.

Hatcher testified that such criminals often use handcuffs and duct-tape gags because they allow victims to struggle and cry out faintly, sexually arousing the abductors.

When Totten showed Hatcher the scorched handcuffs that were found near Paul’s burned body and a list of children with the boy’s name at the top in Smith’s handwriting, Smith began squirming in his chair.

Killers often keep lists such as Smith’s, encoding them with information on potential victims, Hatcher testified.

After being shown the duct-tape gag that the coroner had to cut from around Paul’s face, Hatcher testified, “The individual who applies this type of binding is very, very focused upon the realization of this fantasy, to the exclusion of any possibility of discomfort or death to this victim.”

Hatcher also testified that sodomy and strangulation are the most characteristic means of sexual assault and homicide used in cases such as the ones he has studied.

He said the killer in such a case sees the victim not as a person who is suffering pain, but as “a character that’s acting out a role.”

But during a brief cross-examination by defense attorney James M. Farley, Hatcher conceded that he was testifying only in general terms, not about Smith’s case in particular.

Hatcher’s testimony closed the prosecution case in Smith’s penalty trial, which began Dec. 10.

At the trial’s end, the jury is expected to recommend that a judge sentence Smith either to die in the gas chamber or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. Smith is being held without bail in Ventura County Jail.

The court will take a two-week holiday break, then Smith’s attorneys are scheduled to present evidence and witnesses beginning Jan. 6.