Left: Patricia Wong (County of Hawai’i Office of the Prosecuting Attorney); Right: Kaycee Smith (Facebook).
Kaycee Smith was a 21-year-old rodeo star with a large inheritance when a single gunshot wound to the head ended her life. Now, years after an initial determination of suicide was reversed, a much older couple has been sentenced for the young woman’s murder.
Patricia Wong, 62, long held herself out as the victim’s “hānai auntie,” a Hawaiian cultural term that relates to the informal adoption of someone who is part of the adoptee’s extended family. In other words, Wong used to refer to herself as Smith’s adoptive aunt.
Last year, jurors convicted Wong of Smith’s murder, along with counts of attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, and criminal solicitation.
On June 30, 2009, Smith was found dead at her home in the Orchidland Estates, a census-designated place in Hawai’i County, Hawai’i — which is part of the District of Puna on the Big Island.
The murder scene had been manipulated so that it appeared the victim killed herself, according to court documents obtained by Honolulu-based CBS affiliate KGMB, NBC affiliate KHN, and Telemundo affiliate KFVE — television stations that collectively operate under the banner of Hawaii News Now.
In 2016, nearly seven years to the day of the grim discovery passed before police indicted and eventually arrested Wong.
“She always went to Kaycee for money or had a lot of investments or whatnot with her that I think was corruption,” Brooklyn Maile Rogan, one of Smith’s closest friends, told the TV station.
In December 2022, Wong was indicted on several additional charges. Law enforcement also charged Peter Fuerte, 56, on charges of accomplice to murder and accomplice to attempted murder.
Fuerte eventually accepted a plea deal and was convicted on one count each of felon in possession of a firearm and hindering prosecution in August 2023, according to the Hawaii Tribune Herald. The one-time co-defendant testified against Wong in her 2023 trial, telling jurors she had offered him money to kill Smith. In the end, Fuerte said he only agreed to provide the murderess with a handgun. But, police say, the Fuerte-supplied gun was not the murder weapon.
Last week, the man was given a five-year sentence.
On Tuesday, Wong was sentenced to the maximum penalty of life in prison with the possibility of parole for the two murder charges — plus an additional 20 years for the solicitation and conspiracy charges, according to the County of Hawai’i Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.
Those sentences must be served consecutively.
“We are glad the Court recognized the severity of the actions taken by the Defendant by handing down a consecutive sentence,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Annaliese Wolf said in a statement. “She made a plan to commit murder and took relentless criminal actions to achieve her goal of killing Kaycee Smith. The Court has provided a clear and strong message to the Defendant that her actions were abhorrent, egregious, and deserved the most serious punishment and that there is no place for this kind of heinous conduct in our community.”
Despite her condemnation, Wong maintained her innocence, according to a courtroom report by Hawaii News Now.
“I’m not gonna admit to something I didn’t do,” she told the judge. “And I know God is in my heart. So, I do have remorse over Kaycee, and I loved her like my own. So whatever they think I did, I didn’t do it. So that’s all I have to say.”
Smith’s mother, Emma Chong, gave a victim-impact statement during the sentencing hearing.
“I first want to be a voice for the true victim, the deceased, my daughter Kaycee Smith,” she said. “Kaycee’s life was senselessly taken from her, her family and friends. Kaycee loved life and people. She was loving, generous and kind. But taking Kaycee’s young life at 21 years shortchanged her, cheated her family and the world.”
The grieving mother also addressed her daughter’s killer directly.
“Our family’s forever changed,” Chong went on. “Every holiday, birthday and family gathering Kaycee’s absence is prominent. But incomprehensible grief, sorrow and loss, my family, community and I suffered all at the hands of Miss Wong … My daughter’s blood is on her hands.”
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