Warm Springs woman pleads guilty in double-shooting

A 26-year-old Warm Springs woman entered guilty pleas Wednesday in a Portland federal courtroom and faces up to life in prison for a 2016 shooting that seriously wounded two family members, federal prosecutors said.

Rhyan Leigh Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with the intent to commit murder and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, prosecutors said.

According to court documents, in the early morning hours of March 16, 2016, Smith returned to a house she had periodically resided in with five of her family members.

Around 8 a.m., prosecutors said, Smith retrieved a pistol she had taken from the owner without permission. Smith talked briefly with a family member in the doorway of the family member’s bedroom before shooting him five times.

A second family member heard the gunshots and tried to stop Smith, but Smith shot her multiple times, they said. Both victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

A federal court filing identified Smith as the niece of the shooting victims, Bernadette Smith and her husband, Zach Chambers.

The Warm Springs Police Department and the FBI responded to the house and found Smith hiding in sagebrush near the house with an AR-15 assault rifle. Investigators later found a camouflage rifle bag with multiple AR-15 magazines, loose ammunition and a 9mm pistol in a vehicle at the house.

Smith faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 21 before U.S. Chief District Court Judge Michael Mosman .

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Warm Springs Police Department and prosecuted by William Narus and Craig Gabriel, assistant U.S. attorneys for the District of Oregon.

On March 3, 1994, the FBI initiated “Operation Safe Trails” with the Navajo Department of Law Enforcement in Flagstaff, Arizona. The operation, which would later evolve into the Safe Trails Task Force (STTF) Program, unites FBI and other federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in a collaborative effort to combat the growth of crime in Indian Country .

STTFs allow participating agencies to combine limited resources and increase investigative coordination in Indian Country to target violent crime, drugs, gangs, and gaming violations.