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MARIETTA, Ga. (TCN) — A 32-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for “brutally beating” his girlfriend and then setting fire to a car that spread to a house, killing the victim’s mother and grandmother.
According to a Feb. 27 news release from the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, a jury found Robert Smith guilty of two counts of felony murder and first-degree arson, as well as aggravated battery and aggravated assault. A judge subsequently sentenced him to life in prison plus 20 years.
On Feb. 14, 2022, prosecutors said Smith “violently attacked” his girlfriend, 19-year-old Carolyn Parmalee, leaving a shoe print on her face and causing her eyes to be swollen shut. Authorities arrested him, and he was released on bond under a no-contact order, but Smith “convinced Parmalee to continue their relationship.”
According to warrants reviewed by WXIA-TV, Smith told police he “remembered waking up to the victim shaking him to have him come to bed, and he believed that he mistook this for being attacked and started fighting.” Smith also allegedly said he “blacked out” during the assault and couldn’t recall the details.
The district attorney’s office said Parmalee was hospitalized two more times the following year “due to Smith’s violence.”
Smith reportedly learned that Parmalee’s mother, 52-year-old Andrea Nall, tried to have his bond revoked for violating the no-contact order. On March 12, 2023, he went to Nall’s house with cans of spray paint and used them as an accelerant to set fire to a vehicle parked in the garage. The flames spread to the house, killing Nall, Parmalee’s grandmother, 74-year-old Michelle Lacroix, and six animals.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Jared Horowitz said, “This community was robbed of two amazing women who opened their home as a refuge. These two mothers did what any parent would — protect their children from an abuser. But this defendant used fire to seek revenge. Justice prevailed today, and his reign of terror is finally over.”
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