Former Day-Care Aide Admits Guilt in Death of Boy, 8 : Courts: He abruptly changes plea to charges he kidnaped, molested and choked the Northridge youngster. He could be sentenced to death.

VENTURA —  On the eve of his murder trial in Ventura County Superior Court, Gregory Scott Smith pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he kidnaped, molested and choked an 8-year-old boy, then set fire to his body 19 months ago near Simi Valley.

Attorneys are expected to choose a jury next week to decide whether Smith, a 23-year-old former Canoga Park day-care aide, should be executed for murdering young Paul Bailly of Northridge.

On March 23, 1990, firefighters answering a call to a brush fire found Paul’s body in burning grass, just a few hours after his mother had dropped him off at a latchkey program at the Darby Avenue Elementary School in Northridge. Smith was fired from that program March 6, 1990, after Paul and a number of other children complained that they were mistreated by him.

Smith initially had pleaded not guilty to the charges. He changed his plea moments after attorneys finished a week’s worth of arguments over what evidence would be allowed at trial--the last piece of which was a school portrait of Paul, smiling.

Judge Steven Z. Perren admitted the portrait for trial over the objections of Smith’s attorneys. Then he asked if there was any other business before proceeding to jury selection.

Defense attorney Willard Wiksell stood and calmly asked to change Smith’s plea to guilty on all charges--kidnaping, child molestation, forcible sodomy, murder and arson.

Perren rolled his eyes in apparent shock, and Smith, gaunt and pale, collapsed in tears and buried his face in his hands.

Smith’s parents cried, too, as they sat behind him in the courtroom.

Perren then adjourned and allowed defense attorneys Wiksell and James M. Farley time to review documents on the guilty plea with Smith in a courtroom holding cell.

When they emerged, Perren took Smith carefully through the plea.

Several times, Smith stopped the judge and asked questions about the crimes he was pleading guilty to.

At one point, Smith said, “You lost me,” but he said he was guilty of all five felonies, plus special circumstances, which allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Farley and Wiksell said in earlier interviews that Smith’s psychological profile is their main hope of keeping their client out of the gas chamber.

The attorneys say that a brain disorder kept Smith from talking until age 6 and left him too mentally handicapped and immature to have intentionally killed Paul.

The guilty plea will give Smith, as an admitted child murderer, several advantages when he faces a jury that must decide whether he should live or die.

It discourages prosecutors from presenting the entire murder case and all the grisly evidence to the jury, and the jury will not have to sit through a lengthy trial.

Prosecutors had planned to show at trial that Smith was sexually attracted to Paul and that he plotted revenge on the boy for making complaints that helped get Smith fired.

Prosecutors had said that witnesses were prepared to testify that Smith bundled Paul into his Honda and drove away.

Forensic evidence showed that Smith handcuffed the boy, stuffed a rag into his mouth and then wrapped four layers of duct tape around his head, according to prosecutors. They said that an autopsy showed the boy had been sodomized.

Prosecutors had said that evidence showed Smith choked Paul, who threw up into his gag and suffocated on his vomit.

Smith then took Paul’s body to the field east of Black Canyon Road near the Santa Susana Knolls, poured gasoline over it and ignited it, prosecutors said.