The accountant’s ex-wife was ‘horrified’ to find out he ‘slashed and stabbed the doctor to death’
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The ex-wife of the man accused of running over and then stabbing to death a doctor who was riding a bicycle has denied claims that she was “living in fear” of her ex-husband.
Marla Annette Hart said she and Vanroy Evan Smith, 39, were not in a violent relationship, despite her father telling The New York Post that he was. She said she was “appalled” to hear that her ex-husband had allegedly killed Dr. Michael Mammone, 58, in the incident on Pacific Coast Highway last week.
Speaking to The Post herself, Hart also rejected she claims police did a welfare check at her residence before the murder and said they only visited her afterwards.
She also said the reports that the killing was racially motivated were nonsense, because she said her ex-husband was more than half white.
Prosecutors allege that Smith ran a red light around 3 p.m. and struck Mammone. He then got out of his white Lexus and approached the doctor, pulled out a knife and stabbed him to death.
Hart is pictured with his twin daughters. Her father, Vanroy Evan Smith, is accused of murder.
Vanroy Smith, left, has been charged with murder after Dr. Michael Mammone, right, was knocked off his bike Wednesday and killed.
On Friday, Hart’s father said she was “concerned for her own safety” over her ex-husband’s behavior.
But a day later, Hart categorically denied those claims, saying that she and Smith had remained close despite being divorced ten years ago.
“There was never physical violence, never domestic violence, when we were together,” he told The Post. We divorced because we were incompatible.
“I am completely horrified by the whole thing, horrified that it was Vanroy, and horrified that it was that man who died,” she said. ‘It doesn’t make sense what happened. This was the death of an innocent man. I’m sorry for the victim’s family, for myself and my children.
Her father had also claimed that she and Smith were in the middle of an acrimonious custody battle over their twin girls, but Hart said that was not true either.
On the contrary, he said they were on such good terms that they sometimes went on vacation together as a family.
“There was no bitter custody battle,” he said. She always paid child support for him. She was only changing custody because she was afraid that she was going to move out.’
Smith appeared in court chained to several deputies and spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth.
Marla Annette Hart, who split from Vanroy Evan Smith a decade ago, recently called police at her home amid an altercation with Smith, her father said.
Smith was said to be holding a BB gun when he approached Mammone after the collision and was yelling racial slurs about “white privilege,” according to ABC7.
Hart said that a racial motivation made little sense.
‘His biological father is white. In fact, he did a DNA test and found that he was more white than black. He comes from Jamaica,’ he said.
It has never been concerned with race and racial privilege. It’s all shocking when I hear that she stabbed him.
She said she had “no idea” what might have motivated the attack.
“I haven’t talked to him in over a month, so I honestly have no idea what’s been going on with him before that.”
Aerial images show where the white Lexus collided with the cyclist and remained parked a few hundred yards away.
The shocking video shows the moment Smith, a trained accountant, collided with the cyclist, with police claiming the two were complete strangers.
Hart’s father retracted his comments when he told him his daughter’s side of the story, according to The Post.
“There’s been a lot going on, like a whirlwind,” he said.
‘She just mentioned that he was getting erratic. She never said anything like he was threatening her life. She would say that she was afraid for herself and her children. I can’t say to what level.
Smith, a Long Beach accountant, was held back by bystanders until sheriffs arrived and arrested him at the crime scene.
Heartbreaking footage showed the moment he ran a red light at an intersection, striking Mammone and sending him flying into the air.
Smith appeared in court on Friday and was charged with murder. He remains in custody at the Intake Release Center in Orange County.
“An innocent man is dead because he took a bike ride to enjoy a beautiful California day along the beach and was struck by a car and stabbed to death by someone he apparently never knew,” said Todd Spitzer, California’s prosecutor. Orange County district.
“The murder of a complete stranger in broad daylight for what seems to be no reason is the stuff of nightmares.”
On Facebook, Smith wrote about being mixed race and posted lengthy musings on ethnicity and religion.
“I was born black and white, then I was lucky to grow up the first 12 years with my black family, and the next 6 with white,” he wrote.
I am half-breed and races seem insignificant to me.
Smith criticized the “grudges, the malice, the separation, the hatred” that he felt were directed at people because of their race, noting, “It really holds you back.”
Hart was concerned about Smith’s behavior before Wednesday’s incident, her father said.
The white car Smith was driving when he ran a red light and hit Mammone
He continued, in a misspelled rule: ‘Why can’t we see that all this is temporary? We all wither and die.
‘Were you born with an appearance that people call ugly or misshapen? Okay, you will build character, and then you will go somewhere else, where I think there will be no such limitations, if you go to the right place.
‘Similarly, are you considered beautiful or shapely? Be thankful, not proud. Did you make yourself, and how long will you be like this, does that time even appear on a scale of eternity?’
In another post, in October 2020, Smith wrote: “Current thinking: black VS dark and white VS light.”
He reflected on the meaning given to the colors black and white, and said that it had an impact on people’s attitudes.
“By appearance and established standards, I am called a black man,” he wrote.
‘Does that mean I deny and reject half of my ancestry? How do we tell someone to filter things like that out of his blood?
‘All in all, we really need to change our thinking.
Mammone (in a pink shirt) leaves behind his wife Julie, a nurse at the same hospital (pictured in a leopard-print dress) and two sons, Nick and Jon.
Mammone lived in Dana Point (pictured) in California with his wife and two children.
Mammone has worked as an ER physician at Providence Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach since 2011 and graduated from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in 1993.
He also occasionally worked in Mission Viejo and at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Santa Ana.
The hospital said in a statement: ‘We are stunned by this devastating tragedy. The entire Mission Hospital family is grieving the loss of an incredible physician and friend.
“We will honor Dr. Mammone’s dedication to our community and his passion for medicine by continuing to provide exceptional care.”
He left behind his wife Julie, a nurse at the same hospital, and two sons, Nick and Jon.
Cardiologist Dawn Aatwal said: ‘That’s the irony of all this. If they brought a patient in her condition, she would have done everything she could to save that person.
She added: “He has saved so many lives here, and he died very close to where he saved hundreds of lives.”