A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars after murdering his pregnant lover — a woman he feared was carrying his child.
Isaac Smith, 30, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder in the death of 26-year-old Karli Short, according to court records reviewed by Law&Crime. Smith was also convicted of first-degree murder of an unborn child, as Short was five months pregnant at the time of her death.
On the morning of Sept. 13, 2021, Short was at home with her uncle on Furnace Alley in McKeesport, Pennsylvania — a midsize city roughly 12 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Short and Smith had been romantically involved, though Smith claimed the relationship was limited to only a few encounters.
Short believed Smith was the father of her baby. Just two days before her death, she had texted him asking for money and messaging him about a gender-reveal party, according to court documents obtained by local ABC affiliate WTAE. Smith, however, had moved on to a new girlfriend and was desperate to keep her from learning he had likely fathered a child with another woman.
That morning, Short’s uncle heard her speaking with someone on the phone.
“Are you coming to the front or the back?” the uncle recalled hearing his niece ask before she stepped outside — and a gunshot rang out. Short had been shot in the head. Prosecutors argued that Smith had lured her into the yard and killed her.
Hours later, Smith walked into Allegheny County Police Department headquarters and sat for a three-hour interview, saying he wanted to clear his name. He admitted to having been intimate with Short and claimed he was prepared to be a part of the child’s life.
as the investigation deepened, their confidence in his account began to erode. Officers discovered Smith was in a new relationship — and that his girlfriend had met his parents just days before the shooting, according to Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Ryan Kiray. Smith had a “clear motive,” Kiray argued: “the walls were closing in,” and he “did not want the double life he was living to be exposed.”
In a bitter irony, Smith was not even the father of Short’s unborn child — a fact Short’s own father made clear in a searing statement at the sentencing hearing.
“My grandchild was not murdered by her father,” Brandon Short said. “Her father did not kill her. A murdering coward did.”
Short’s aunt spoke to how thrilled her niece had been about the pregnancy. “That was her joy; that was her moment,” she said, per WTAE, before directing her words at Smith. “Having to sit in the same room with him is devastating. It’s unimaginable.”
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