JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A teenager has been arrested in the shooting death of a man during an armed robbery last October in Northwest Jacksonville, police said.
Jihad Abdul Smith, 18, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime, has been charged with murder, armed robbery and tampering with evidence in the death of 25-year-old Bryan Ramon Davis-Jones, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office announced Monday.
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Davis-Jones was found shot to death Oct. 18 inside a crashed vehicle on West 19th Street and police said evidence, including shell casings, indicated the shooter had been inside the vehicle.
Investigators said they later found Davis-Jones' cellphone in a sewer drain and discovered recently deleted text messages between Jones and another person, later identified as Smith.
“He had apparently deleted the messages prior to throwing the phone into the sewer," Lt. Steve Gallaher said.
Less than a month after the shooting, Smith was arrested in an unrelated crime after he was found in a stolen vehicle and in possession of a gun, Gallaher said. He has been in custody since then, and after tips came in from people who knew Davis-Jones and Smith, detectives interviewed Smith on Friday about the shooting.
“They confronted him with the deleted messages, not only from the victim's phone but from the phone records of his phone that they were able to get," Gallaher said.
Smith admitted he knew Davis-Jones and confessed to shooting him, Gallaher said.
“He actually set up the victim in a robbery, and during the robbery the victim was shot and killed," Gallaher said.