A man under a civil commitment as being mentally ill and dangerous was sentenced to 33 years in prison Friday for breaking into a woman’s St. Paul apartment and fatally stabbing her, a 2022 killing he said was triggered by his belief that she was his mother.
In November, Maurice Angelo McClinton Smith, 42, appeared in court by Zoom from St. Peter Regional Treatment Center and pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder in the killing of 47-year-old Tina M. McCombs, a mother of six, in St. Paul’s North End on Jan. 9, 2022.
Smith and McCombs were Facebook friends, and Smith told police in an interview they met about a month earlier, according to the criminal complaint.
Smith was in a Ramsey County courtroom for his sentencing by Judge Joy Bartsher, who gave him about the middle of the range allowed under state guidelines.
Because of his civil commitment, the state’s Department of Corrections and Direct Care and Treatment will determine where he will serve his time, whether in prison, at St. Peter or elsewhere.
The civil commitment was originally put in place about seven months after the killing. In August 2023, he was found to be competent to face the charges against him.
Stab wounds to chest
Officers were sent to the apartment at 180 W. Larpenteur Ave. about 2:30 p.m. after a report of a man kicking in doors while holding a knife. As officers were on the way, they received updated information that a woman had been stabbed.
Police found McCombs unresponsive on the bedroom floor, and parts of the door and lock to the apartment scattered in the entryway. She was pronounced dead, and an autopsy showed she’d been stabbed twice in her chest.
Her boyfriend told police he was dozing in the living room when a man broke in. He heard McCombs yell, “What … is wrong with you?” before the man stabbed her. He said he’d seen the man around and thought he was homeless.
Maurice Angelo McClinton Smith (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
About 90 minutes after the killing, police received a report of a man lying on a back stoop of a residence three miles away and found Smith. He was unable to respond to officers, had dried blood on him and matched the stabbing suspect’s description. McCombs’ boyfriend identified him from a photo lineup as the man who killed her.
An investigator asked Smith why he was at McCombs’ apartment and he said “to get some tea and crumpets,” the complaint read. “When asked why he went to see (McCombs), Smith said, ‘To kill her.’ Smith said he was a simple prophet.”
November plea hearing
At his Nov. 18 plea hearing, under questioning by his attorney John Riemer to establish a factual basis for the plea, Smith agreed that he had used methamphetamine and ecstasy and drank alcohol before going to McCombs’ apartment.
Smith agreed with his attorney’s statements that McCombs had previously cut his hair, and that she had supported him through what the attorney said his client described as “very traumatic mother issues.”
Through McCombs’ support, Riemer asked his client, “you transferred that into seeing this person as your mother?” “Yes, sir,” Smith said.
“In fact, you specifically killed (McCombs), stabbed her, to seek revenge for what your mother did to you?” Riemer asked. “Yes, sir,” Smith said.
‘I fought tirelessly for justice’
Four written victim impact statements from McCombs’ family members and friends were filed in court for the judge to read prior to Friday’s hearing, and a few others were read in court.
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One statement was from McCombs mother, who wrote it before recently dying of cancer. It was read by McCombs’ sister.
“I fought tirelessly for justice, a burden I carried in my heart even as my body waned,” the statement read. “I wished to have been there in her final moments, to hold her and tell her I loved her, and to stand beside her, demanding the truth.”
McCombs had the heart and soul of a protector and giver, her siblings said in a victim impact statement read by prosecutor Ryan Flynn.
“Our sister Tina wasn’t the type to cower from adversity, but on Jan. 9, 2022, our unnerving and strong-willed sister met a fate none of us could have expected,” the statement read. “This tragedy created a hole in our foundation that’s unforgettable and unfillable.”
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