JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – On his 70th birthday, a jury on Thursday recommended Pinkney “Chip” Carter be resentenced to death for murdering three people more than 20 years ago.
The jury had been tasked with deciding whether Carter would spend the rest of his life in prison or be executed for the 2002 murder of his ex-fiancée, her new boyfriend and her 16-year-old daughter.
Carter, who was previously sentenced to death, 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.
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 moved forward.
The jury’s decision Thursday was not unanimous. On one of the murder counts, 10 jurors recommended death with two recommended life in prison. On another count, 9 jurors recommended death and three recommended life in prison.
A judge will have the final say on his sentence in the coming weeks.
Families who spoke to News4JAX after the trial said they thought justice was served when Carter was sentenced to death row 19 years ago, but it wasn’t. Now they say they find comfort in knowing he’s going back.
“Reliving everything again was rough, but I’m glad to see that justice was served the same way we wanted it to be. It’s over now. Officially over now,” said Becca Reed, whose mother and sister were murdered.
The prosecutor who helped convict him years ago, Bernie de la Rionda, is the same one who worked to get him returned to Death Row on Thursday.
“I still remember the crime scenes and unfortunately there are some things you can’t get out of your mind,” he said. “What this family has been through it’s incredible they still have faith in our justice system. It’s refreshing that our criminal justice system works.”
Below is a look back at how the resentencing trial unfolded over the last two weeks.
Wednesday testimony
“It felt safe in that home,” prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda explained as he delivered closing arguments Wednesday afternoon to jurors, describing what it was like for the four children who were sleeping inside their mother’s home early in the morning July 24, 2002. They were 16-year-old Courtney Smith, 14-year-old Rick Smith, 8-year-old Rebecca Reed and 6-year-old Bryan Smith.
“At approximately 12:30 a.m. the world as they knew it would be shattered,” he said about the moments Chip Carter entered their home and shot and killed their mother, Reed, her boyfriend, Glenn Pafford and Reed’s daughter, Smith.
“I’m asking you to go back in time and think about what this man did,” said De La Rionda as he detailed what he argues is proof that the murders were cold, calculated and premeditated murder.
De La Rionda reminded jurors about a neighbor of Reed’s who found Carter one night before the murders in his backyard, trying to peak into Reed’s home.
“He was trying to figure out how he could surprise them,” he said.
Carter knew Reed, who was his ex-fiancee, was dating someone new.
He still loved her and testified in 2005 that he went to her home that night with a loaded rifle, “to get some answers.”
He said he accidentally shot 16-year-old Courtney during a struggle with Reed, but De La Rionda contends that does not make sense, telling jurors unless it was a “magical” bullet, how would a bullet hit Courtney in the head, if the rifle was pointing down as Carter demonstrated about the struggle for the rifle.
“He was obsessed with her,” said De La Rionda about Carter’s feelings for Reed. “He was jealous, and he thinks he’s been played and that he had the right to go over there and get some answers,” he said, asking jurors to use common sense when deciding if Carter should return to death row or be sentenced instead to life in prison.
“The law says you can use that God-given common sense to evaluate the evidence,” he said.
Defense attorneys for a Jacksonville man convicted in a 2002 triple murder called witnesses Wednesday as they tried to convince jurors to sentence Pinkney “Chip” Carter to life in prison instead of sending him back to Death Row.
His convictions are not in question but because of changes to Florida law, Carter was granted a resentencing trial because the recommendation for the death penalty from his original jury was not unanimous.
Carter’s attorneys are trying to convince jurors that the combination of medication and alcohol Carter had the day of the murder and his troubled childhood should warrant a life sentence, not a death sentence.
Tuesday testimony
Chip Carter’s father was described as a “monster” by his former step-daughters in Duval County court Tuesday morning.
“He was very abusive to my mother,” Jill Larkin said about P.W. Carter. Larkin’s mother married P.W. Carter after he divorced Chip Carter’s mother.
“We lived in fear, in great fear,” described Larkin about the six years she and her seven other siblings endured at the hands of P.W. Carter. “He got mad at my sister one time and he took off his belt and started beating her. She was on the floor bleeding and we were yelling and screaming.”
Carter did not live with his step-siblings during the abuse. But his brother and sister testified their father was violent.
Defense attorneys also called an expert in pharmacology and toxicology, who testified about how the combination of anti-depressant medication, Prozac, and alcohol can impact the human brain.
Carter testified during his 2005 trial that he had taken 2 anti-depressant pills and drank 4-5 alcoholic beverages within a few hours of confronting Reed and Pafford at Reed’s home in 2002. He testified that night he “was having thoughts I had never had before, I was confused, it was chaos.”
His testimony was read to jurors last week.
Pharmacologist Dr. Daniel Buffington, testified a combination of Prozac and alcohol can, “enhance the adverse side effects of both substances.”
Carter testified during his first-degree murder trial in 2005, that he went to Reed’s home to confront her about dating him and Pafford at the same time. He said during a struggle with Reed over the loaded rifle he brought with him to her home, “to get answers,” that he accidentally shot her teenaged daughter and then shot Reed as she went to help her child.
He then shot and killed Pafford. All three were shot in the head.
Prosecutors argue Carter had no trouble driving to Reed’s home that night despite having taken Prozac and drinking, and that he didn’t miss a single shot of the six he fired.
The murders sent shock waves through the entire community at that time 22 years ago. Pafford was a long-time, beloved manager at a local Publix store, Reed worked at the same store along with her two oldest children.
Monday testimony
Carter’s sister, Cindy Starling, testified for more than an hour Monday morning about her brother’s childhood. Marred by poverty and an absent father, Starling said, she, Carter and their two older brothers were raised by a single mother who struggled to provide financially for the children.
“We ate saltines that had been heated with butter on top, as a snack,” she told jurors.
She said their father lived with another woman and never provided any financial support to his children.
“He was physically violent with my brothers,” she explained during questioning by defense attorney Alan Chipperfield. She said her mother was so overwhelmed, and she tried to take her own life.
Starling’s son, Jacob Slotin, also testified Monday about his uncle’s arrest and conviction more than two decades ago.
“Absolute devastation to the family,” he described upon learning as a teenager that Carter had been arrested for murder.
Slotin said he visited Reed and her family often as a young child. He said he and Smith’s brother, Rick, were close. They vacationed together and Slotin remembers spending the night at Reed’s home, the same home where Reed, Smith and Pafford were killed.
“I love my uncle. I’m still upset about what happened. I love him very much, that doesn’t go away,” Slotin testified when asked what impact the murders and Carter’s death sentence have had on his life.
Last week
The resentencing trial started last week with emotional and gut-wrenching testimony from the family of the victims.
Rick Smith choked back tears on Thursday describing hearing what sounded like loud “slapping” noises coming from the living room where he had left his mother, Liz Reed, and Pafford.
His 16-year-old sister, Courtney Smith, ran out into the living room when she heard arguing.
Rick, then just 14 years old, emerged from his bedroom when he heard screaming and found his sister, mother and Pafford shot and dying.
His 8-year-old sister Rebecca and 6-year-old brother Bryan were sleeping in a back bedroom and were not physically injured.
Reed, Smith and Pafford all died in the shooting.
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-fiancée’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.
Carter sat quietly, listening as his testimony was read. Jurors heard him tell prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda why he went to Reed’s home shortly after midnight on 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 and neither Reed nor Pafford saw the rifle Carter 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 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.”
Smith died two days after the shooting.
“Before you got into the house did you plan to kill anyone?” asked 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.”
How we got here
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.
No chance
During opening statements, prosecutors said the three victims never had a chance.
Smith was shot in the head with one bullet. She died two days later at the hospital.
Reed had two gunshot wounds to her head. She died in the living room.
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 Rick 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.