Ex-Virginia Tech linebacker Isi Etute set for murder trial, likely with a controversial defense

Former Virginia Tech linebacker Isi Etute told police that he didn’t return to the apartment in downtown Blacksburg, Virginia, last summer "with full intentions to just beat him up."

But when he confirmed that the person he knew on Tinder as "Angie" was actually a man, that is what happened.

Etute admitted to hitting Angie – who family members later identified as an openly gay man named Jerry Paul Smith – five times with his right hand, then kicking him in the face when he was on the ground, according to excerpts of an interview with police included in a federal search warrant application. He claimed that Smith wasn't talking when he left the apartment but appeared to be breathing and "making noises." Only later, Etute told police, did he notice the blood on his sandals.

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A family member found Smith's body in the apartment the next day, and the local medical examiner's office ruled that he had died of blunt force trauma to the head. Authorities charged Etute, then 18, with second-degree murder.

Nearly a year after the tragic Memorial Day beating, Etute's two-day trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday in a Montgomery County courtroom – about 10 minutes from the university where he had enrolled early as a three-star football recruit, and the town where Smith, 40, lived and worked as a restaurant manager.

Etute, who has pleaded not guilty, would likely face a sentence of between 12 and 20 years in prison if convicted, according to state sentencing guidelines.

The case has drawn national attention due to the involvement of Etute, who is no longer a member of the football team nor a student at Virginia Tech, according to school spokespeople. And it has prompted local outcry because of his attorneys' negative portrayal of the victim, which is likely to be part of the defense's strategy in court this week.

"Nobody deserves to die, but I don’t mind saying: Don’t pretend you are something that you are not," attorney James Turk told The Roanoke Times after one hearing last year. "Don’t target or lure anyone under that perception. That’s just wrong."

Samantha Rosenthal, the co-founder of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, called those comments – and the defense's broader strategy in the case – "very upsetting."

"It opens the door to imagining that anyone who is transgender or gender non-conforming or presents themselves in any kind of way – even if it’s not all the time – that that’s inherently deceptive. That there’s some intentional malice there," said Rosenthal, an associate professor of history at Roanoke College.

"This case feels like it’s trying to pull us back in time, from all the decades of progress that trans activists have made here.”

Turk declined comment when reached by USA TODAY Sports. Montgomery County Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt also declined to comment on the case, saying it would be inappropriate to discuss it prior to trial.

According to court records, Etute first visited Smith's apartment above the Hokie Mart in April 2021. Smith, who allegedly presented himself on Tinder as a woman named Angie, performed oral sex on Etute and gave him $50. The linebacker said he then returned to the apartment 51 days later after one of his teammates also matched with Angie on Tinder, to determine if the person was a man.

In court filings, Etute's lawyers portray him as the victim of a "criminal ruse," acting in self-defense after he allegedly saw Smith reach toward his bed, where police later found a knife.

They claim in one filing that the 6-3, 209-pound Etute hit Smith only to "stun him so that he could escape," and that he didn't intend nor believe Smith was seriously injured but "only bruised." Etute's lawyers also allege that Smith had been "obtaining sex by ruse" in several separate incidents dating back to at least 2017.

Smith's friends and family have expressed outrage about the defense's characterization of the 40-year-old, according to local news reports. They attended past court hearings with T-shirts bearing Smith's face and the message "#justiceforjerrysmith."

"He was maybe 112 pounds soaking wet. He wasn't a threat to nobody," a spokesperson for the Smith family told The Roanoke Times last year.

The case heads to trial less than a year after Virginia lawmakers passed a bill banning what is colloquially known as the gay/trans panic defense, a strategy in which attorneys attempt to blame a defendant's violent action on the victim's sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.

Warren Andresen, a professor at St. Edwards University who has studied the use of LGBTQ panic defenses, estimated that they typically come up in four or five murder cases each year. Though they rarely lead to acquittals, he said they result in a reduced charge roughly 30% of the time.

Andresen likened the strategy to those that are sometimes employed in high-profile sexual assault cases involving athletes, in which defense attorneys attempt to shift some of the blame onto the woman who was assaulted.

"They’re going to try to take the victim and make the victim look either complicit or make the victim looked like they caused what happened – or make the victim not look like a victim at all," Andresen said.

Virginia is one of 16 states that ban the LGBTQ panic defense and the only one in the South, according to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. But it is unclear whether or how elements of the defense will factor into Etute's case.

Etute's attorneys filed a motion last week arguing that the ban should not be enforced in his case because the incident occurred one month before Virginia’s law came into effect. They also claim the jury should not be instructed on the parameters of the banned defense following the trial, because Etute's defense goes beyond those parameters.

The judge has not ruled on the motion ahead of trial.

"I think for our LGBTQ community here, but particularly for trans people here, it’s just very upsetting," Rosenthal said.

"The defense is presenting a perspective here that, if they were victorious, it would make us all feel like we could be victimized, we could be hurt, we could be killed – just because somebody thought I was a cisgender woman."

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Murder trial for Isi Etute, ex-Virginia Tech linebacker, set to begin