JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Time may heal wounds, but the gaping hole left by the loss of a mother and sister at the tender age of 14, has left a scar so deep in Rick Smith’s life. He struggled 22 years later to recount the worst day of his life.
Smith, now 36, testified Thursday morning in a Duval County courtroom about the moment he awoke to the sound of someone screaming, “Oh my God, someone call 911.”
“I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my BB gun. I was scared,” he told jurors as prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda questioned him.
Smith choked back tears describing hearing loud “popping” noises coming from the living room where he had left his mother, Liz Reed, his 16-year-old sister, Courtney Smith, his 8-year-old brother, Brian and 6-year-old sister Rebecca, along with his mother’s boyfriend, Glenn Pafford.
“I saw my sister laying on the ground, her head was facing toward me,” said Smith, his voice shaking with emotion remembering seeing his sister bleeding from her head and struggling to breathe.
Smith checked on his mother and Pafford next, but neither was moving. His 8 and 6-year-old siblings were in the living room when the shots were fired, he ordered them to run to his sister’s room and hide under the bed. He had no idea if the shooter was still in the house.
Rick Smith, who was 14, then called 911.
That early morning of July 24, 2002, the teenager lost his mother and his older sister.
Prosecutors said they never had a chance. Courtney Smith was shot in the head with one bullet, she died two days later at the hospital.
Liz Reed had two gunshot wounds to her head. She died in the living room.
Glenn Pafford, who was the store manager at the grocery store where Reed and her children worked, had three gunshot wounds to the head. One of them was fired at point-blank range after he had fallen to the floor.
Prosecutors are trying to convince jurors that the convicted shooter Chip Carter should remain on death row.
After Smith’s testimony, they called the first police officer to the stand who arrived on the scene, they presented the testimony of the medical examiner who testified during Carter’s murder trial in 2005 and also questioned the lead detective who investigated the triple murder case in 2002.
Assistant Chief Chuck Ford described where and how he found the rifle Carter used to commit the murder. It was discovered at the bottom of the Rio Grande River at the border of Texas and Mexico.
Carter had dated Liz Reed for three years, the two lived together on and off during that time with her four children.
That all changed on July 23, 2002, when Carter, who had moved out of Reed’s home, became enraged when he found Glenn Pafford at the home he once shared with Reed.
Carter fled Jacksonville, triggering a nationwide search. He drove to Texas, where he swam across the Rio Grande River to reach Mexico. He was arrested on a weapons charge but paid his jailers $1,000 to get himself out after News4JAX discovered him locked up in Reynosa. We tried to interview him, but he hid from our camera.
Carter’s crimes sent shockwaves through the quiet Arlington neighborhood where Reed lived. Three dead, including a teenager, was not a common occurrence in Jacksonville at the time.
The case was profiled in People Magazine. Carter was even featured on America’s Most Wanted.
Nearly a year later, a state trooper in Kentucky saw a wanted poster with Carter’s face on it and remembered arresting him on New Year’s Day, 2004, for public drunkenness. Carter had been released, but the trooper tracked him down and re-arrested him.
Jacksonville police flew Carter from Kentucky to Jacksonville to stand trial. In 2005, Carter was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting Reed, her boyfriend and her daughter. The same jury that found him guilty also recommended he be sentenced to death. A judge upheld that recommendation.
For Reed and Pafford’s family, it was justice served, knowing their loved ones’ killer would never hurt anyone else ever again.
But 12 years later, a 2017 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court prompted the Florida Legislature to change how the death penalty could be applied. A death sentence would have to be a unanimous decision by a jury and not just a majority, as it had been at the time of Carter’s conviction.
Even though the state legislature changed the law again in 2023, requiring an 8-4 majority, Carter’s case fell under the previous ruling, and he has been granted a resentencing trial.
Carter’s attorneys insisted during opening statements this morning that Carter will never get out of prison and should be allowed to die of natural causes in prison, and not be sentenced to death.
For Reed’s and Pafford’s families, the horrors of that day in July 2002 are now being relived in court, as a new jury weighs whether their loved ones’ killer should spend his life in prison or return to Death Row.
Testimony will continue on Friday.