Former Virginia Tech football player Isimemen Etute was found not guilty Friday in the 2021 beating death of gay man Jerry Paul Smith who he met on Tindr posing as a woman.
The second-degree murder case drew widespread attention last year because of the unusual circumstances: a college athlete who admitted fatally beating an openly gay man who had posed as a woman on Tinder to initiate a sexual encounter. Etute’s attorneys argued the beating was self-defense in a confrontation between the two in which the man’s true identity was revealed.
When the verdict was read to the courtroom, Etute’s father, David, collapsed in his seat while his wife Nichelle sobbed. Etute lifted his defense attorney Jimmy Turk off the ground in a bear hug with both of them crying. Smith’s family quickly left the room.
Turk spoke to reporters outside the courthouse after watching bailiffs remove the ankle bracelet Etute had been required to wear since being bonded out of jail on June 9.
Etute, then an 18-year-old early enrollee at Virginia Tech, fatally beat Smith on May 31 at the Blacksburg restaurant worker’s apartment, according to court testimony.
They connected on Tinder, a dating app, weeks earlier after Smith, who identified as an openly gay man, presenting himself online as a 21-year-old emergency room physician named Angie Renee.
Smith performed oral sex on Etute on April 10, and Etute returned to the apartment with two of his former teammates in May seeking to determine if Smith was a man or woman.
Turk contrasted his client with the victim in stark terms on Friday. He referred to Smith as a “deceitful and dishonest man” who “defrauded young men for his own sexual gratification.”
Turk spent much of his closing statement arguing Etute, who testified on his own behalf, acted in self-defense after Smith swung at him and reached under his mattress. The police searching Smith’s apartment found a knife hidden between the mattress and box spring in the spot where Etute alleged the attack took place.
“I felt violated,” Etute said, of discovering Smith’s identity. “I was just in shock, in disbelief that someone tricked me and lied to me.”
