JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Bryan Reed Jr. was 6-years-old when his mother, Liz, was murdered steps away from him.
While he struggles to remember the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, or the comfort of her hugs, he will never forget the moments in his life all mothers cherish but were missed.
“I lost the relationship between a mother and son. She never saw me graduate high school, was not there when I got married,” he tearfully recounted Friday in Courtroom 306 of the Duval County courthouse.
“Instead there was an empty seat reserved for her,” he said.
His sister, Rebecca, was 8-years-old when Chip Carter killed her mother and half-sister, Courtney.
“Courtney, Courtney,” she screamed that night, July 24, 2002, after the 16-year-old was shot.
Both children were in the living room of their mother’s Arlington home when Carter confronted her and her new boyfriend about their relationship.
22 years later, Rebecca, is grown with her own children. The pain has never subsided.
“There have been many moments. I didn’t have mom to cheer me on at softball (inaudible)...Christmas time (inaudible)...that I miss most,” she cried.
“I’ll never forget the look on their faces,” said Bryan Reed Sr., Rebecca’s father, Liz’s ex-husband, about telling them their mother was gone forever.
“It has been 22 years since that dreadful day, yet it still feels like yesterday,” described Larry Smith, Liz’s first husband. His son, Rick, was home the night of the shooting and is the one who found his sister and mother bleeding and dying.
While the loss of a mother and sister has been unbearable, the unintended consequences of that night would come days after the murders, when the children who survived the shooting had to be split up.
Rick went to live with his father and Bryan Junior and Rebecca moved to Indiana to live with their father. Rick described to jurors the grief of losing not just a mother and sister, but his younger sister and brother that night.
For Liz Reed’s father, he found comfort in Carter’s conviction in 2005, but died before he could speak Friday in court. His widow, Kay Null, told jurors, “What happened that night, the pain and grief continued until the day he died.”
Two former co-workers of Glenn Pafford, who was also killed by Carter, told jurors about his kindness and generosity. Pafford had worked for 30 years for Publix. He was a store manager. Reed worked at the same store, her oldest children worked there too.
Chip Carter testimony
“I wasn’t angry, I was hurt,” said Chip Carter in 2005 when he testified during his triple murder trial. When asked why he went to his ex-girlfriend’s house with a loaded rifle in his hand, he said, “I was upset about the whole relationship, I wanted to get back with her.”
Those words and the rest of Carter’s testimony nearly 20 years ago were read aloud in court Friday morning.
They will decide if he should remain on death row or be sentenced to life in prison, after Carter’s initial death row sentence is being reconsidered after a change in state law.
Carter sat quietly in court, listening, as his testimony was read. Jurors heard him tell prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda, why he went to Liz Reed’s home shortly after midnight July 24, 2002.
“I’m not leaving until you give me some answers,” he said he told the mother of four. “She didn’t show up for the date, I was upset, I was confused, I wanted some answers.”
Carter said the two were supposed to meet earlier in the evening, but Reed did not show up. Instead, Carter drove by her house and spotted her new boyfriend’s truck in the driveway.
Pafford, who was dating Reed, was just leaving her home, when Carter walked up it was dark, neither saw the rifle he had concealed behind his leg. All three went inside.
Carter said he confronted Reed about why she was seeing him and dating Pafford at the same time. Reed then saw the rifle in his hand. He said she, “grabbed the gun and tried to pull it from me” and it went off.
A bullet hit 16-year-old Courtney Smith in the head. As Reed rushed to her daughter’s side, Carter admitted to shooting her twice in the head.
“I don’t know why I did it,” he testified in 2005. “I just lost it, is all I can tell you.”
Courtney Smith died two days after the shooting.
Carter’s guilt is not in question during this trial, he admitted to shooting all three during his 2005 trial. His attorneys are trying now to convince jurors he should be sentenced to life in prison instead of death.
“Before you got into the house did you plan to kill anyone?” asked his attorney, Alan Chipperfield during the 2005 trial.
“No,” responded Carter.
“When you got inside the house did you have plans to kill anyone?” asked Chipperfield.
“No,” said Carter.
Carter described himself as an “excellent shot.”
Carter was granted a resentencing trial after a 2017 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court prompted the Florida Legislature to change how the death penalty could be applied, requiring a death sentence be a unanimous decision by a jury and not just a majority, as it had been at the time of Carter’s conviction.
(NOTE: The Legislature changed the law again in 2023, requiring an 8-4 majority, but Carter’s case fell under the previous ruling, so his resentencing trial is moving forward.)
Carter’s attorneys insisted during opening statements Thursday 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.
News4JAX has been following the case for 22 years, including finding the fugitive Carter locked up in Reynosa, Mexico, and trying to interview him there. He hid from our camera.
The case was profiled in People Magazine, and Carter was even featured on America’s Most Wanted. He paid off his jailers in Mexico, but was eventually caught by state police in Kentucky and returned to Jacksonville to face trial.
Carter was convicted in 2005 of first-degree murder. The same jury that found him guilty also recommended he be sentenced to death, and a judge upheld that recommendation.
Now a new jury must decide if that is still to be his fate.
Emotional testimony
Richard “Rick” Smith was the state’s first witness. He recounted on the stand Thursday the day he found his mother and sister shot in the head in their living room. He was 14 at the time.
Smith, now 36, testified about the moment he awoke on July 24, 2002, to the sound of someone screaming, “Oh my God, 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 what he said sounded like “slapping” noises coming from the living room where he had left his mother and 16-year-old sister, along with his 8-year-old sister, 6-year-old brother and his mother’s boyfriend.
“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, and 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. He called 911, but it was too late for his family.
No chance
Prosecutors said the three victims 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 two oldest 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.
After Smith’s testimony Thursday, prosecutors called the first police officer who arrived on the scene to the stand. They also presented the testimony of the medical examiner who testified during Carter’s murder trial in 2005 and 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.
The crime
Carter had dated Liz Reed for four years, the two lived together on and off during that time with her four children. They had been engaged to be married, but Liz broke it off.
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.
Now the victims’ families must relive the horrors of that day as a new jury weighs whether their loved ones’ killer should spend his life in prison or return to Death Row.