Psychologist Says Child’s Slaying Showed Signs of Sadism : Courts: The testimony in Gregory Smith’s penalty trial likens the evidence to that in many other cases.

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

Christopher Hatcher, a San Francisco expert in child abduction cases, testified in Smith’s 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 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.

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.

After 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.”

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.