JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a 14-year-old girl last month in the Jacksonville Heights area, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Police said Saffron Eshia Ifill, 20, is charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of the girl, identified as the younger sister of Ifill’s 17-year-old girlfriend, who was fatally shot Sept. 5 on Renault Drive South near Hillman Drive, directly across from Jacksonville Heights Elementary School on the Westside.
According to Ifill’s arrest warrant, Ifill and his ex-girlfriend got into an argument over money, and the ex-girlfriend smashed his car window. The warrant said Ifill went to get his current girlfriend and her 14-year-old sister, intending to have it out with the ex-girlfriend and her family. Somewhere along the line, according to the warrant, he obtained a handgun, which had been stolen, and gave it to the 14-year-old to hang onto. The warrant said Ifill and the two teenage sisters then drove to Jacksonville Heights Elementary, parked and walked to a home on Renault Drive South, where the ex-girlfriend and her family were. Two of them were armed, the warrant stated. Ifill got the gun back from the 14-year-old, and the confrontation led to an exchange of gunfire, according to the warrant. An 18-year-old was shot in the arm, and the 14-year-old was killed. The warrant does not say who fired the shot that killed her.
“I just heard like fireworks going off, and my wife asked me. ‘Is that gunshots?’ Then right after, that there was a second volley of gunshots,” one neighbor recalled.
Ifill was arrested Oct. 7 on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, grand theft and trespassing on school property. The manslaughter charge was added Tuesday. As of Wednesday, he was being held in the Duval County jail on $475,000 bond, according to online jail records.
“That’s really good news," Patrice Brown, who lives nearby, said of charges being filed in the 14-year-old’s death.
News4Jax crime and safety expert Ken Jefferson explained what has to happen for a manslaughter charged to be filed.
“Evidence or a witness account about what actually happened, the timeline of which it happened," Jefferson said. "All of this is supporting evidence they need to make that charge.”
On Wednesday, when News4Jax stopped by the Renault Drive South home, which still had a lot of evidence tape visible, the family declined to comment.