Ex-Day-Care Aide to Face Trial in Slaying : Hearing: Prosecutors will seek the death penalty. The burned body of 8-year-old Paul Bailly was found in Simi Valley last year.

Gregory Scott Smith was ordered held for trial Friday on charges that he kidnaped, molested and strangled an 8-year-old boy and set fire to his body in Simi Valley last spring.

Smith, a slight, 23-year-old Canoga Park day-care aide, sat quietly in Ventura County Municipal Court as Judge John E. Dobroth ordered him to answer charges of murder, kidnaping, arson, sodomy and felony child molesting.

Smith is scheduled to be arraigned May 10 in county Superior Court. Prosecutors say they are seeking the death penalty for Smith on grounds that he killed Paul Bailly of Northridge during the course of three other felonies.

Dobroth’s order capped 1 1/2 days of frequently emotional testimony in the second preliminary hearing Smith has undergone in the slaying of the Northridge boy.

Willard Wiksell, one of Smith’s court-appointed attorneys, said, “It’s a very tragic case, and at this point we’re going to do everything we can to keep him out of the gas chamber. . . . The evidence is very strong against Mr. Smith.”

Firefighters found Paul’s body in the middle of a gasoline-fueled brush fire in the Santa Susana Knolls on March 23, several hours after his mother had dropped him off at the Northridge day-care program where Smith once worked.

Dr. F. Warren Lovell, the Ventura County coroner, testified Friday that the boy had been sexually assaulted and throttled with his assailant’s thumb and forefinger before he threw up in his gag and suffocated. The boy died before his body was set afire, Lovell testified.

Detectives found a pair of handcuffs under Paul’s body, which could have slipped off of his wrists during the fire, Lovell testified.

Detectives also found a cloth gag in Paul’s mouth held in place by four layers of duct tape wrapped around his head, testified Ed Jones, an evidence technician with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Jones said the cloth had been cut from a pair of blue boxer shorts that Smith’s mother, Sherron Smith, had found in the family washing machine and turned over to prosecutors several days after the crime.

Sherron Smith’s housemate, Donna Anderson, testified she was present when the shorts were found, but she balked when Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris asked whether she believed Smith’s mother should have told authorities about the evidence.

“The day the shorts were found, we took them straight to Greg’s attorney,” Anderson said, glaring at Kossoris. Anderson said the Smiths had been “badgered and threatened” by a sheriff’s detective who said they faced a grand jury subpoena if they withheld evidence.

Detective Michael Barnes later confirmed he told the family they could face contempt-of-court citations if they failed to cooperate with the investigation.

Smith’s father, Marvin Smith, then took the stand.

Kossoris asked if Greg Smith had ever told his father about the crime.

“No he did not,” Smith angrily told Kossoris. “Because of you, I’ve been unable to see him. I think you’re devious. I think you have a hidden agenda, and I think you’d do anything in your power to get what you want.”

Outside the courtroom, Marvin Smith said of the prosecutor: “It’s become a personal vendetta with him, and he’s going to get the death penalty with this case and he doesn’t care how he does it. . . . What’s most hurtful is he’s really battered our family with calls and innuendoes, and things that just don’t make any sense.”

Gregory Smith did not kill Paul because he has the mind of a 9-year-old and “doesn’t have the ability to put together an agenda for two hours,” his father said.

Kossoris said later: “It’s understandable he’s not happy with the people that are prosecuting his son.”