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Marian Kathryn Smith was sentenced to 12 years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, for first-degree reckless homicide in the death of her fiance, Shaun Brian Lewis, 48, in New Richmond, St. Croix County, Wisconsin.

Smith pleaded guilty in St. Croix County Circuit Court on Monday, October 30, 2023, under a plea agreement with St. Croix County District Attorney Karl Anderson. The agreement reduced a first-degree intentional homicide charge and two counts of resisting or obstructing an officer to a single count of first-degree reckless homicide. There was no trial. Court records show the conviction as first-degree reckless homicide.

Circuit Court Judge Scott Nordstrand imposed the total sentence of 22 years, with credit for 549 days in jail. Smith was ordered to pay $1,152 in restitution, was made ineligible for the Challenge Incarceration Program and the Substance Abuse Program, and must have no contact with Lewis's family. The prosecutor argued that she had shown no significant remorse, citing her initial claim of self-defense despite a lack of defensive wounds, her denial that she had cleaned up blood, and her later claim that she had no memory of stabbing Lewis. Nordstrand said it was still not known for certain what happened that night and expressed doubts about her account of not cleaning up the blood.

St. Croix County Dispatch received Smith's call at 6:03 a.m. on Saturday, August 27, 2022, reporting a person who needed medical attention at a home on the 600 block of North 2nd Street in New Richmond. Police found Lewis on the floor inside with multiple puncture wounds. First responders' life-saving efforts were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. According to court documents, the scene had been partly cleaned of blood before law enforcement arrived. An autopsy found two stab wounds and ruled the cause of death homicide. He was stabbed in the stomach, puncturing his aorta.

Smith told police that she and Lewis fought over a knife and that Lewis fell on it during the fight. Investigators called it an isolated domestic incident and said the public was not in danger. Smith, who lived in New Richmond and was 53 when charged, was charged in St. Croix County Circuit Court on Monday, August 29, 2022. She was held on a $500,000 cash bond, with conditions that she not contact Lewis's family or a witness.

Early in the recorded police interview, conducted in an interview room, an investigator tells Smith she is free to leave and is not in custody. She says she and Lewis began dating in October 2019, had been engaged about a year and a half, and had moved to New Richmond about two months earlier. She says she is a nurse and a former military medevac, and that she performed CPR until police arrived while also talking to the 911 dispatcher. She calls Lewis her best friend and her fiance and describes him as drinking heavily.

In her account to detectives, Smith said Lewis was intoxicated and insulting her while he washed dishes. She said he grabbed her while she was holding a knife, and that they pushed each other and fought over the knife.

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Part 2 of 3 of the recording described above.

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Part 3 of 3 of the recording described above.