Tri-Cities mental health counselor charged with killing his counselor girlfriend
A Tri-Cities counselor who specialized in treating patients suffering from PTSD, trauma and anxiety is charged with strangling to death his longtime counselor girlfriend.
Michael Thomas Smith, 38, is charged with second-degree murder for killing Jenna Olafson, 38, earlier this week at the house where they lived and worked south of Richland.
They shared the home with Olafson’s mother, who also worked as a professional counselor in the Tri-Cities.
Smith remains hospitalized after attempting to take his own life with a kitchen knife and by taking some unknown pills.
Still, a Benton County Superior Court judge issued a $1 million nationwide warrant, officially charging Smith.
He was arrested Sunday afternoon at the El Rancho Reata home after Olafson’s mother, Lisa Gerber, and a man found her dead on the back patio of their home, according to court documents.
They told Benton County deputies that they believed Smith was still inside the house at 88817 E. Reata Road. Gerber is listed as the owner of the 2,300-square-foot home, where she lived on one floor and her daughter and boyfriend lived on the other.
Tri-City Regional SWAT team members, along with Benton County deputies, called to Smith to come outside. He eventually walked out of the home and was taken to a local hospital, said officials.
Sheriff’s deputies were at his bedside while he was getting treated.
“After the tube was removed from the defendant’s mouth, he immediately stated, ‘I murdered Jenna,’” Deputy Prosecutor Taylor Clark wrote in the court documents.
After he was read his Miranda rights, he reportedly told investigators he strangled Olafson the day before on July 8 about 4 p.m.
He then tried using a small kitchen knife and pills to take his own life.
Court documents don’t say if Smith gave a reason for their confrontation but Smith was able to give details about their violent struggle and her plea for him to stop strangling her.
But it wasn’t until the next afternoon that her mother discovered her body on the porch and her companion called 911, according to the documents. It’s unclear if she died on the porch or was taken there.
The couple had been together for seven years, according to the charging papers.
Tri-Cities counselors
Online records show that Olafson and Smith worked as counselors out of the Reata Road home, according to public records.
The couple both received their master’s degrees from the same small Pasadena-based Saybrook University in California.
He is licensed mental health counselor and certified trauma counselor. She also was a licensed mental health counselor.
The two graduated within a year of each other, Smith in 2016 and Olafson in 2017.
Olafson spent seven years as a counselor working with adolescents and adults. She had a focus on addressing trauma, depression, ADHD and LGBTQ+ issues, according to her profile on the Psychology Today website.
“Each individual’s story and experience are sacred and it is my belief that they should be honored as such. Your voice is important!” she wrote.
Smith had worked as a counselor for four years, according to his Psychology Today profile and his website.
He spent two years working for the Seattle Indian Health Board where he said he learned to see trauma through a historical lens. He said his focus was patients with trauma, PTSD, anxiety and substance use issues.
“We are all the experts of our own lives and we innately have what we need to heal,” he wrote in his profile.
“Due to life experiences on a personal, community, and generational level, sometimes this process can get “stuck.” My job as your therapist is to serve as a guide to help you identify where this process is being interrupted and collaborate together to remove the barriers preventing natural healing from continuing.”
