Teacher, detectives testify at hearing for woman facing charges in granddaughter’s death

EMMETT (Idaho Statesman) — The Emmett grandmother accused of concealing the death of her 8-year-old granddaughter has been ordered to face two charges in district court after an Aug. 31 hearing in the case.

After considering evidence presented, Magistrate Judge Tyler Smith ruled there was probable cause for Connie Smith to be arraigned in the Third Judicial District of Idaho on charges of failing to notify law enforcement of a death and concealment of evidence.

In April, authorities in Gem County initially announced that three Emmett siblings were missing. Two older children — 17-year-old Tristan Conner Sexton and 14-year-old Taylor Summers — were reported as runaways in 2020, and authorities initially believed that 8-year-old Taryn Summers, who was reported missing April 12, may have joined up with her siblings. (The Sheriff’s Office later said that law enforcement and family members had made contact with Taryn’s two older siblings.)

Multiple agencies, including the Gem County sheriff, Idaho State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue assisted with a search, which included using drones and search dogs, according to testimony at the Aug. 31 hearing obtained by the Idaho Statesman.

State police investigators eventually discovered a body inside of a trash bag on the backseat floorboard of a Lexus parked in front of the house on Airport Road, near Highway 52, from which the girl had disappeared. The body was later identified as Taryn Summers, based on DNA evidence linking the girl to her biological mother, according to testimony from Lt. Jason McIntosh, the lead investigator at the Gem County Sheriff’s Office.

At the Aug. 31 hearing, Gem County prosecutor Erick Thomson called five witnesses to testify about the April 2021 events that led to Smith’s arrest.

Mattea Smith, a teacher at a preschool in Emmett, told the court that she had seen Taryn Summers and two other children in the Lexus about 1 p.m. on April 12, when Connie Smith drove to the preschool to pick up a different child in her custody.

Mattea Smith said she heard Connie Smith tell the other child to be “very quiet,” because Taryn was asleep in the back seat.

“Taryn had her head tipped back in the seat like she was a sleeping kid,” Mattea Smith said.

McIntosh testified in court that he responded to the report of a runaway at Connie Smith’s property in Emmett on April 12. He said that she told him that she had entered Taryn’s room about 4 p.m. that day to offer her snacks before leaving to offer food to the other children in her home.

In his testimony, McIntosh said that Smith had told him she had custody of Taryn, and had “adopted her, or something like that.” In a probable cause affidavit, signed by McIntosh and obtained in April by the Statesman, Smith is identified as the grandmother of “TS,” who was found inside the Lexus.

Smith told McIntosh she returned to Taryn’s room around 5 p.m. and found her absent. The girl was reported as a runaway around 7 p.m., McIntosh said.

During his testimony, McIntosh added that Connie Smith told him Taryn Summers had, at some point, defecated on the carpet in her room. Unable to clean it up, Smith said she had cut out the carpeting and burned it in her backyard, he said. She also said she could not find the keys to the Lexus, which was parked out front.

After extensive search efforts in the neighborhood to locate Taryn over multiple days, on April 15 a patrol sergeant with the state police located an assortment of keys that were on top of a cabinet next to the kitchen sink in Smith’s home, according to his testimony. One of the keys opened the Lexus.

After searching the trunk, a different state officer, Det. Sgt. Jason Horst, unlocked the doors and noticed a reflective material through the window of the back seat, he said in his testimony. He opened a back door and discovered a black trash bag.

“I kind of got that feeling of what I’d find when I opened it,” he said in court. Inside, he saw the body of a young girl.

“I immediately thought that it was the body of Taryn Summers,” he added.

The charges Smith faces are punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $60,000. The cause of Taryn Summers’ death is not publicly known.

Smith will be arraigned in district court before Judge George Southworth on Sept. 13.