The Misery Machine - The Tragic Case of Braxtyn Smith

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

This week, Drewby and Yergy hop on I-95 and head up to Bangor, Maine, to discuss the case of Braxtyn Smith, a 10-year-old boy who died in February of 2024 following two years of severe, prolonged abuse, starvation, and physical restraint at the hands of his family. Because he was homeschooled and socially isolated, the extreme neglect went unnoticed by authorities until he was brought to a hospital weighing only 48 pounds. His tragic case resulted in a series of major criminal convictions and has triggered a sweeping state-level investigation. But as Maine residents, we have to ask ourselves... How the hell did this happen? AGAIN. Support Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachineJoin Our Facebook Group: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachineOfficial Merch Store: https://miserymachine-shop.fourthwall.com/Instagram: miserymachinepodcastTwitter: misery_podcast#documentary #themiserymachine #truecrime 🚨 EDUCATIONAL, DOCUMENTARY, SCIENTIFIC, OR ARTISTIC CONTENT DISCLAIMER 🚨CONTENT WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS ABOUT A SENSITIVE TOPIC INVOLVING LOSS OF LIFE. WE'VE REMOVED ANY GRAPHIC CONTENT TO COMPLY WITH YOUTUBE'S GUIDELINES. WE AIM TO PROVIDE INFORMATIVE, FACTUAL JOURNALISM ON A TRAGIC EVENT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST THAT DOES NOT DISMISS ITS SERIOUSNESS. ALL CLIPS ARE USED UNDER THE DOCTRINE OF FAIR USE FOR NEWS REPORTING AND ANALYSIS.Fair Use Disclaimer: "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."THE CONTENT IN THIS VIDEO IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, BASED ON BELIEVED RELIABLE SOURCES. THEY MAY NOT BE CURRENT OR FULLY ACCURATE. VIEWERS SHOULD DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH AND NOT SOLELY RELY ON THIS INFORMATION. WE'RE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INACCURACIES OR OMISSIONS. WE DO NOT CONDONE, ENDORSE, OR ENCOURAGE ANY OF THE BEHAVIORS OR ACTIVITIES SHOWN. WE URGE EVERYONE TO ALWAYS ACT RESPONSIBLY AND WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW.

Braxton Smith was 10 years old. He lived at 24B Street in a mobile home park called Birch Hill Estates in the far north end of Bangor, Maine, behind Judson Heights off Broadway. He lived there with his mother, his father, and his younger sister. That is very close to everything the public record holds about him. Even despite being 10 years old, he was never enrolled in the Bangor School Department. And a spokesperson for the district confirmed that. According to the affidavit filed in his case, he was homeschooled his entire life. When reporters went out to Birch Hill Estates to speak with residents there, four neighbors told them they didn't know the family.

One woman who lived nearby had seen Braxton outside only once, and she assumed he was visiting someone else there. We usually opened an episode by telling you who somebody was, what they'd like to eat, who their friends were, what their teachers thought of them, but for Braxton, that material doesn't exist. Braxton's father was Joshua Smith, who was 33. His mother was Gem Bean, who was 35. Joshua's mother, and Braxton's paternal grandmother, so Joshua's mom, was Misty LaTurette, who was 56 years old. Misty didn't live in the trailer, but she was over there often.

Joshua had one prior conviction for an OUI in 2012. Either Gem nor Misty had any criminal history whatsoever in the state of Maine. Gem worked for the main Department of Health and Human Services, the state agency that runs Maine CPS. She held an administrative job at Dorothya Dick's psychiatric hospital in Bangor. Department spokesperson, Lindsay Hams, said Gemm's job didn't involve direct patient care and didn't involve interacting with children or with child protective services directly. Joshua was home full-time. Misty was not employed.

She came to the house often enough that the three of them were the only people who ever cared for Braxton. Now, I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't quickly bring up probably the most notable missing person's case in our home state in recent years. The psychiatric hospital I just mentioned is the same facility that then 37-year-old Graham Locker ran away from on June 6, 2022. Graham, who is autistic and schizophrenic, had been receiving treatments since April of that year. Graham is still missing, and his mother is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to a successful reunion with him. Anyone with any information that could be helpful are asked to contact the Bangor Police Department. Love that information for you in the show notes and in the PIN

comment. We'll be back in just one minute. Please stick around for the following ad. It not only supports the channel, but it also supports charities in our area. You know what's literally on everybody's to-do list that never gets done making a doctor's appointment? And it's not because we don't care about our health. It's because the process is so aggravating. You have to call during business hours, get put on hold, play phone tag, and then when you get through, you find out that the next appointments in three months. So you just give up. And then what? You just have to start all over from the beginning again. Does this sound familiar to you? That's why I started using Zoc Doc, the sponsor of this week's episode, and honestly, I wish I had found them sooner. You just go to their

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That's Zocdoc.com slash misery machine. Thanks and back to the episode. So the state of Maine allows parents to homeschool with two requirements. Written notice of intent and a yearly assessment. The assessment does not. does not require the child to appear in person anywhere. They theoretically can be kept away permanently from the eyes of anyone who could verify their safety.

The assessment portion can be satisfied with the results of a standardized test or with a portfolio reviewed by a certified main teacher. The notices of intent themselves are covered by federal student privacy law, which means they can't be released and we do not have access to them. The Bangor Daily News filed public record. requests with Bangor schools and with the main department of education trying to establish something basic. Was Braxton ever registered as a homeschooled student at all? Both of these requests were denied. Who actually did the teaching as one of the things the coverage

doesn't agree on. Prosecutors put it on Gem and Misty. Other accounts have named Misty alone, or Joshua and Misty. The one name in every version of events is Misty's. Gem told police the physical violence started when Braxton was around nine years old. Missy told police she was the one who told Joshua to withhold food from Braxton as a punishment. She wouldn't tell detectives how much food or for how long it had been going on for, but in one text message to her son, Missy wrote that she wanted to tempt Brackston into eating laxative chocolates to further punish him. Missy told police her grandson hadn't been over to her place in months. She said this was because of of how he behaved. So she was over at the trailer regularly. Her son came to her for parenting

advice and what she felt was the best way of dealing with a difficult child was withholding food. Apparently Ziptine him was another punishment option that was brought up. Jim told police she didn't agree with Ziptine Braxton and she didn't agree with withholding food from him, but she said she never challenged Joshua about either one because he threatened her whenever she did so. Joshua told detectives his son had gotten it into his head that he was too heavy and had to slim down. Joshua said Braxton would turn down the meals his parents cooked and then complain of hunger afterwards. If you've seen some of our previous coverage of starvation cases, you would note that this is a common story parents who are starving their kids try to spin,

that their child just won't eat for whatever reason and the parents feel no urgency to seek any medical help because of it. That summer, the family went to a Fourth of July barbecue at someone else's house. The host of that party told detectives that Braxton's parents put him under a tree with the dogs and barred him from eating. According to the host, Braxton said he was sleeping in the bathroom. In texts from Joshua to his mother Misty about Braxton, he described how he would have fun slapping him. One message read, super tired and I'm going to slap him already so it should be fun.

Another, Joshua described Jem trying to stop him from beating Braxton, and Jem telling him to take his anger out on her instead. Now remember when we said that Jem said this started around the time Braxton turned nine. Well, the affidavit describes the last five months as a stretch where it became constant, but prosecutors put the whole span at about two years. None of it was noticed by anybody living outside that trailer. Joshua told detectives he started zip tying Braxton almost daily. His explanation was that Braxton was defiant and sneaky and that leaving him unsupervised was dangerous because he got into things such as medicine.

Joshua said he looped the ties long enough that he could still get to the bathroom and that he had recently injured his mouth chewing at them. These restraints got more elaborate over time. Braxton's hands were bound together, sometimes behind his back. He was tied to boxes, doorknobs, kitchen chairs, and plastic storage totes. It was also tied to his parents directly. Joshua and Gem would zip tie Braxton to themselves and switch off, passing him between them as they moved around the trailer. While he slept, he was tied to one of them.

Gem told police that once he got free, he would sneak a candy bar. Joshua told detectives he looked into buying handcuffs because of the cost of having to replace so many zip ties. In the months leading up to the events of today's story, they apparently stopped tying themselves to Braxton and instead left him to sleep on the bathroom floor or in the living room with a blanket and nothing else. His hands were zip tied behind his back with one foot zip tie to a plastic tote and they would do the same when he nap during the day. Joshua told police the reason for this was that Braxton had become more problematic. Court documents captured a text exchange between the two parents. Joshua wrote, there's some reason you couldn't be bothered to zip tie

everything you're supposed to, huh? Jim answered, what did I miss? I did his ankles to the tote and his hands together behind his back. In December, Joshua complained to his mother Misty by text that the small ties weren't holding him anymore and that it was limiting what he could do with his time. In that same stretch of messages, he wrote that he was going to kill Braxton. Joshua told Misty he slapped Braxton across the face, she answered with a single word, lovely. Misty's own account of the restraints was that she didn't see Ziptie and her grandson as a harmful option and that they got to do what you got to do to stop Braxton injuring himself for anyone else. Braxton was so hungry that while Jim cooked dinner, he went into the garbage for scraps.

Text messages Joshua and Misty reminded each other about the sunglasses. Braxton was to have them on any time they took him to the store. Joshua said he had stopped taking his son to the grocery. grocery store because he asked for food that wasn't going to be bought. Misty kept dog food in her purse for her small dog, and she brought the purse with her when she visited. Now, we will get to the dog food part in just one second, so to be perfectly clear, almost all of what we have shared thus far came from the accounts of the three adults themselves,

describing, in their own words, what they had done to poor Braxton. But there was one other person living in that house, that was Braxton's younger sister. She sat down with a forensic interviewer. She told them that her brother ate dog food and slept in the bathroom. On February 17th, 2024, Braxton was acting off all day. That was Jem's word for it when Bangor police asked her, and she couldn't elaborate on what she meant by that. Little after midnight, going into February 18th,

he woke up and said he felt sick and his stomach hurt. Jim ran a warm shower for him hoping it would settle whatever was wrong. He allegedly collapsed in it and once he got him out he vomited and his breathing turned shallow. She performed mouth to mouth and he steadied and then she phoned Misty who drove over. Braxton was put in his parents' bed and the two women said they monitored his pulse throughout the night. Around 8 o'clock that morning he appeared to have stopped breathing. Jim said she started CPR. She told police she realized after a while that it wasn't.

working. The two of them put him in a car and drove him to the emergency room at St. Joseph's hospital. By the time hospital staff took over his care, Braxton had no pulse and had stopped breathing. He weighed 48 pounds. Medical personnel worked on him for about 25 minutes before they got a pulse back. Hospital worker told a detective what the boy's vomit smelled and looked like, and that was dried pet food. When Joshua and Gem were asked, about that later, both said they didn't know how he would have access to pet food. When a charge nurse told them the medical team had gotten his pulse back, Misty immediately said he's a liar. And then Gem added, he lies all the time, referring to Braxton. Nurses alerted the main

department of health and human services. Brackson was eventually transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center. He was pronounced dead and 9-13 that evening, roughly 13 hours after he first arrived at a hospital. A doctor at the hospital later told police they had never seen a case of CA this severe in a 30-year career in pediatric critical care. When Braxton reached the emergency room, there were tears under his eyelids, and they stopped not long after. According to that filing, one doctor read the change as a sign that his brain could no longer

register pain or emotion. The autopsy was performed the next day. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Lisa Funti conducted an autopsy on February 19th, including that Braxton's cause of death was blunt force injuries in the setting of battered child syndrome. Battered child syndrome is the clinical term for a pattern of injuries at different stages of healing that points to repeated violence rather than one accident. At Jem's plea hearing, Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robin read a list of at least 15 injuries into the record. Bleeding between his brain and skull. Hemorrhages inside the brain,

some of them weeks old. A herniated brain. Burns on his body consistent with a cigar. Bruises across his face and body, ulcers on his back, hair loss, and abrasions on his wrists and ankles. Blood that wouldn't clot in a low white blood cell count. Zip ties taken from the trailer came about carrying Braxton's DNA. On his body, the medical examiner found marks that matched the zip ties. He weighed just 48 pounds when he died. In a well-child check in February of 2023 a year earlier, he had weighed nearly 62 pounds. Prosecutors later wrote in a court filing that he was so amaciated that he appeared to be the victim of a concentration camp or end-stage cancer. The audience, autopsy also found evidence that Braxton had been essayed. Joshua denied all knowledge of this.

He told detectives he never touched that child. When asked about the injuries, all three gave versions of the same answer. Braxton fell a lot, or that they didn't know how it happened. This is another common excuse parents give in CA cases. Joshua said Braxton had tripped into an air conditioner two or three days earlier. He said Braxton often fell down. He described punching Braxton in the chest as playing around and popping him. Gem told police she had watched Joshua knock Braxton down, and that she had also seen Misty strike Braxton in the head. Joshua also told police the responsibility was his since protecting his son had been his job.

Then he said that Braxton was responsible as well because he wasn't eating decent food. February 28th, 20th, 2024, 10 days after Braxton died, all three were charged with depraved indifference murder. Under Maine law, that means engaging in conduct that shows an indifference to the value of human life. Bale was set at $300,000 each, and all three were held at the Pinawkot County Jail. Their first appearance was March 1st. Joshua and Gem pled not guilty on July 26, in separate arraignments of the Penobscot Judicial Center. Misty also pled not guilty.

and none of the three made bail. Jem was the first to change her plea. In February 13, 2026, she pled guilty to manslaughter in Penobscot County Superior Court down from depraved indifference murder. She cried as she entered her plea. The manslaughter charge meant she had acted recklessly or with criminal negligence

rather than with the indifference that a murder charge alleges. Her attorney, Hunter Savaris, said the state would recommend 25 years. Her other attorney, Adam Swanson, told reporters that he was hoping for something between five and ten years. According to Attorney Swanson, it's been a very difficult experience for Gem, a difficult experience for a lot of people. We do believe that the manslaughter charge more accurately reflects her involvement. Her sentencing wasn't scheduled at the time. Under the arraignment, Gem would be sentenced only after Joshua and Misty had gone to trial.

Her plea didn't require her to testify, but her attorney said he expected the state to call her as a witness against both of them. Until then, she went back to the Pinaw Scott County Jail to wait. Joshua and Misty were supposed to go to trial together on March 23rd, but that date was pushed back. Joshua's attorney, Don Brown, told the court he wasn't ready and was still waiting on two expert reports. The trial was pushed to June 17th. In the meantime, Misty's bail was cut from $300,000. to $100,000 at a hearing on March 17th. Her attorney, Chris McLean, argued there was almost nothing tying her to the death itself.

What killed Braxton was a blow to the head, and Attorney McLean's position was that nothing put that on her. He said, this is a case where we think the evidence is really very, very thin, that she was involved in any way in the murder of the child. Then on June 9th, days before the trial was finally due to start, Joshua asked to to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. He had already been examined once by a court-appointed mental health expert, and his attorneys wanted a second opinion. Judge Ann Murray said no.

At the same day, Joshua and Misty both gave up the right to a jury. He asked instead for a bench trial, which means a judge alone decides what the verdict is. Two days later, on June 11th, Joshua pled guilty to depraved indifference murder. He answered Judge Murray's questions with a flat. affect. She asked whether he was pleading guilty because he was in fact guilty, he said yes. Assistant Attorney General Robin spent nearly 18 minutes reading the facts of the case and the evidence

the state would have put in front of a judge. She read out text messages between Joshua and Misty covering the two years before Braxton died. The state, she said, would have shown that Braxton was starved, tortured, and beat. Joshua answered her in court. He said the messages had been taken out of context, and that some of them were sarcasm and stuff like that. Then he said, it's not like I was trying to kill him or anything. Assistant Attorney General Robin also told the court what happened at the hospital on the day Braxton died. Medical staff worked to keep him alive after they already knew he wouldn't survive so that Joshua could get there and say goodbye to his son. During that window, Joshua went to a weed store. Next afternoon, June 12th, Misty Play

guilty to manslaughter days before her own bench trial was set to begin. According to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Bogue, the agreement had been reached that Friday with the Office of the Main Attorney General. Under it, the state would recommend 25 years with all but 15 of them suspended. Suspended time is the part a defendant doesn't serve unless they break the terms of their release, so the recommendation was 15 years in prison. Her attorney, Chris McLean, argued for time served. that would mean no further prison at all because the 28 months or so that she had spent waiting in jail

would have covered the whole sentence. Attorney McLean felt that her actions didn't cause Braxton's death at all. He said she had bought Joshua zip ties twice but couldn't reasonably have known where that was headed. Yes, she had suggested withholding meals until Braxton did his chores, but in his mind, that is not the same thing as starving a child to death. According to attorney McLean, she made choices that. that in retrospect, she recognizes, could have been handled differently. We thought the better way to handle things is to accept responsibility with manslaughter. Gem and Misty were both sent in

Sun June 26, 2026 in front of Judge Murray. Gem got 25 years with all but 10 suspended. Yes, that's correct. All she got was 10 years in prison. Top of that, six years of probation and $375,375 in restitution with that money going towards Braxton's funeral, as if $375 could cover a child's funeral in any conceivable sense. She is barred from contact with any child under 14 while she is on probation. This includes her own daughter. She cannot live within 10 miles of her, and she can't attend any activities involving her daughter. Through tears, Gem addressed the court and apologize for her role in her son's death. I'm so sorry and he's spoken,

and I wish more than anything that I could go back and do everything over. I miss both my children, and I will have to live with his guilt and sorrow. My apologies off of my parents. I have realized that I found that shade and I heard through all of this. Judge Murray told the court

the abyss that this child endured was horrendous. He had his head smashed against the door. He was tied to the door. His hands were bound behind his back while his head was being smashed. He was sleep deprived. He was required to sleep on the bathroom floor. He was hit with hands.

He was hit with bamboo sticks. Judge Murray weighed what there was in Jem's favor. She had cooperated with the investigation early. It was a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and a second one recognizing her as a victim of long-term family violence. What happened to Braxton happened while she was in that relationship. Jim had also gotten between Joshua and her son, and she had snuck Braxton food when he wasn't being fed. But Judge Murray gave the DV less weight than otherwise she might have,

and one of the reasons she gave was that Gem worked for DHS and knew what resources her and Braxton had access to. According to Judge Murray, I think it's hard to fathom how a mother could let this happen. Assistant Attorney General Robin described Gem as a more passive member of the three, someone who was directed by Joshua and Misty, and who was out of the house at work while most of the violence was happening. She also said, she knew Joshua was assaulting Braxton, and she did not do more to protect him. Misty was sentenced that afternoon and got exactly what Gem got. Ten years. That was five years less than the state had asked for.

She also got four years of probation in the same $375 in a bar on contact with Braxton's sister, or with any child under 14. Once again, 10 years in prison, having direct involvement, as well as having every opportunity to prevent direct harm upon a child to the point of death, and all you get is 10 years in prison. This sounds unthinkable on paper that this could be true, but yet time and time again, these are the slaps on the wrists people like this receive. And yet again, we are seeing a trend of people receiving lighter sentences for being involved in the killing of a child compared to an adult victim.

To be noted that, based on my research and understanding of Maine law, Maine does not separate voluntary and involuntary manslaughter into different degrees. It's just one charge. And the maximum punishment any person can receive for a manslaughter charge in the state of Maine is 30 years. And these two scumbags received a third of that. Judge Murray spent about 25 minutes on Misty's role in Braxton's death. There were the occasional slaps the boy's head.

There was the ritual of making him open his mouth once he'd been in the garbage. Zip ties were bought as recently as two days before he died by Misty, who knew what they would be used for. Part of the plan to withhold food until Braxton did certain chores was her idea, and so was the work of hiding his bruises when the family was out in public. Then Judge Murray brought up Misty's husband. In Braxton's final days, Misty kept her own husband for his husband. from laying eyes on him, because as Judge Murray put it, he would not agree with how the child looked. The day before Braxton died, Misty was in the car with him. According to Judge Murray, Braxton was skin and bones. There was no way Ms. LaTorrette did not see

Braxton's condition. Even after that, Judge Murray said Misty kept encouraging his parents to withhold food. Judge Murray also went through the text messages which showed the range of what Misty knew about it. She said, she knew Braxton had to steal water. She knew that she knew that. She knew that knew he was being injured. She knew he was being injured with implements. She added that. It is just extreme cruelty. The person standing before me today right now, however, did not inflict the physical injuries that caused him to be taken to the hospital in February 2024. Misty's own statement ran about 15 minutes and was mostly inaudible. She cried through it and said that the case was a result of my failures. In her account of the final night, she said she deferred to Joshua and Gem. She gave

Braxton some rescue breaths, she said, while she and Jen monitored him. And when he started vomiting and stopped breathing, she said she was the one who pushed to take him to the hospital. Assistant Attorney General Robin disputed that. Jim had told investigators that she was the one who had made that call. As of the date of this recording, Joshua has not been sentenced. He is still being held in Spanop Scott County Jail and his sentencing is expected in late September of 2026. The maximum possible sentence for depraved indifference murder in Maine is life in prison. A candlelit vigil was held on March 9th, 2024. Joanna Sanford raised the idea on a community Facebook page and a man named Matt McKean offered

to organize it. Neither of them had met Braxton. Roughly 75 people gathered on the Bangor waterfront for the vigil. They congregated around seven photographs of him. At one point, the crowd was asked whether anyone there was family. No one said that they were. Carrie Dinkins, a pastor at the mansion church, prayed for the community. Speakers asked people to talk to their neighbors more, so they would notice when something was wrong.

Joanna said there had been a neighbor of hers who used to ask after her kids and why they weren't out playing more often. Since Braxton's death, she said she sees that woman differently. Be the nosy neighbor, she said. A neighbor at the vigil described the trailer where Braxton lived. The blind stayed shut, and she almost never saw a light inside. DHS wouldn't say whether or not it had ever investigated Braxton's family. Under state and federal law, the department is barred from discussing child protective cases except in very particular circumstances. The Bangor Police also declined to say whether officers had ever been called out to the Birch Hill estate's home, citing that the investigation was still open.

Bill Diamond was a former Maine Secretary of State and a former state senator who had spent the last years of his career on child well. Two girls' deaths have been the subject of investigations that he led. One of them was 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy, killed by her mother and stepfather in 2018. The state received 25 reports about Marissa and her family in the 16 months before she died, and didn't confirm CA until after she was dead. In 2023, he founded a nonprofit called Walk a Mile in their shoes, which pressures Maine's Child Welfare Agency for Reform. On the Saturday after the charges were filed, he handed the

Braxton Smith affidavits to the Portland Press Herald. He said, somebody failed Braxton. We're waiting to see if the Department of Health and Human Services was involved, but somebody along the line failed him. We have to be more aggressive in finding out why these things are going on. If we don't get a handle on this quicker, more kids are going to die needlessly. As you and I are talking now, that's going on someplace else right in the state of Maine. We just don't know it yet because the kid hasn't died. And that right there is the scary part, and a big reason that this case in particular was very difficult for us to research. As you might already know, we've been sharing victim's stories with you for seven years now, and we've covered many cases here in our home state of Maine.

And many of those cases were children who were murdered by their parents or guardians. You want to hope that with many of these high-profile cases that something would change within the child welfare system, the cases like Marissa's or Logan Mars or Kendall Chicks or Maddox Williams would have caused such a shockwave that surely changes would have been made as a result. But in 2024, it happens once again, and poor Braxton is killed in a manner just as brutal as the others, and it completely knocks the wind out of you. Things aren't getting better. Something I hear from time to time is okay, but these cases must be rare.

They must be anomalies, so let's stop focusing on this and move on. Well, at least in Maine, that's certainly not true, and the numbers back it up. A 2023 report on Maine's Office of Child and Family Services found that the rate at which Maine children experience repeat maltreatment is double the national average. Reviewers also found the office correctly spotted risk and safety problems in only half the cases they examined and acted on them in about 26% of cases. In the spring of 2024, about two months after Braxton died, Bill spoke at a statehouse rally impressed the state of Maine to say whether or not DHS had ever had contact with Braxton or his family,

and the department wouldn't answer him either. Bill Diamond died on August 31st, 2025 at the age of 80. His organization had announced six days earlier that health problems were pulling him back from the daily running of the group. He didn't live to see any of the three plead guilty. Samantha Field, the government relations director for the coalition for responsible home education, told the Bangor Daily news about the gap in the law. She said, the ceiling is incredibly high with homeschooling students. There can be just incredible results. The unfortunate problem is that the floor doesn't exist.

You can achieve incredible results, but there's nothing stopping somebody from being dead. Parents can hide the fact that they murdered their children sometimes for years. Samantha's organization tracks the numbers. A third of students who are pulled out of public school for homeschooling are pulled out after a substantiated report of CA. According to the most recent state figures available at the time, Maine had 10,122 homeschooled students, and 858 of them were 10 years old. The state knows how many children are being homeschooled. It has no mechanism for seeing what their days look like. What Samantha's group wants is a wellness exam requirement.

It would mean a form signed by a pediatrician confirming they had seen the child. It's the same exam most kids get before starting public school. On January 6, 2026, Brackson's name was read into the record at the main state house. Senator Jeffrey Timberlake was presenting LD. 555, a bill to split child and family services out of DHS and make it its own department. He opened his testimony with a list of names, and Braxton Smith's was one of those names. Senator Timberlake called it Bill Diamond's legislation. He also gave the committee numbers. 34 children died with the involvement of the Office of Child and Family Services in 2021.

32 died in 2022. 31 died last year. More main children had died in the previous five years than in the 13 years before them combined. We normally end an episode mentioning where the funeral was held. The headstone says what people wrote on the memorial page afterwards, and we couldn't find any of that for Braxton Smith. There is no obituary. There's no burial location in any public record we could reach.

The only figure attached to his funeral anywhere is at $375, the restitution that Gem and Missy were ordered to pay as a share of their sentence. His name will likely be added among the countless others to the main murder victim's memorial located at Holy Family Cemetery in Augusta. This is, of course, only if a family member requests it. This is one of the most tragic parts of covering a case when a child is murdered. Sometimes there is no other family member. Sometimes the only family they had were the ones that wanted them dead.

Raxson's younger sister was in that trailer as well. She is seven years old now. And she has been adopted into another family. Both her mother and her grandmother are barred from any contact with her for the length of their probation. What she remembers about her brother and what her adoptive mother told a courtroom in Bangor is this, that Braxton would cover her with his own body to protect her. If Braxton's case resonated with you, then please click here to check out the case of Marissa Kennedy, who we mentioned earlier in this episode.

We'll also be adding a playlist in our pin comment of all of our main cases, which includes many of the children that were mentioned in Senator Timberlake's bill, including Maddox Williams, Kendall Chick, and Logan Marr. Thank you.