CALLAHAN, Fla. – Gaven Smith, one of two teenagers arrested shortly after a 16-year-old West Nassau High School student was shot and killed in February 2020, pleaded guilty Thursday in Nassau County court to a third-degree murder charge.
Deputies said Trent Fort was shot Feb. 24, 2020, while in a car with four other students in the Spring Lake Estates neighborhood off Lem Turner Road.
Ashton Riggs is charged with accessory to murder in the case. The teens are both from Callahan and were charged as adults.
They were initially charged on unrelated charges of felony battery on a person over 65. Smith, now 18, also was charged with violation of probation and possession of a firearm by a delinquent minor.
Smith, appearing via Zoom from the Nassau County jail, pleaded guilty Thursday to both the murder charge and the firearm possession charge.
Smith’s attorney said his plea was not part of a negotiated deal with the State Attorney’s Office and he was not promised a lesser sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. His attorneys are asking that he be sentenced as a youthful offender, which would carry a maximum of six years with a combination of serving time in prison and probation.
But Fort’s mother, Paige Hall, who watched the Zoom hearing live Thursday, said that wouldn’t feel like justice to her.
“I feel like he needs to be sentenced as an adult,” Hall said. “I feel like Gaven made an adult decision by taking Trenton’s life. He made a decision by carrying a firearm as a 17-year-old. He made an adult decision and I feel like he should be sentenced as an adult.”
The judge said he will decide at the sentencing hearing Oct. 29 whether Smith will be sentenced as a youthful offender, a juvenile or an adult. Each carries a different level of penalties.
If he’s sentenced as an adult, the maximum sentence on the murder charge would be 30 years, and the maximum sentence on the weapons charge is 15 years. Prosecutors said they were not pursuing a minimum mandatory for either charge because Smith had been cooperating since his arrest.
“He took my son’s life. My son died at 16. He’ll be turning 18 next month. He would be a senior in high school. He’s not coming back,” Hall said.
She said watching Thursday’s plea hearing was emotional for her.
“Hard to see him. I’ve never seen Gaven. I don’t know Gaven. So looking at him through that camera was very hard, very tough knowing that that’s the last person that my son looked at,” Hall said.
Investigators said in 2020 that Smith is believed to have pulled the trigger after an argument during a drug deal. He was arrested shortly after Fort’s murder at a McDonald’s in Callahan. Deputies later found the 9mm handgun involved in the shooting in the woods, Undersheriff Roy Henderson said.
Henderson said that Fort and the shooter went to school together. Fort’s parents said they’ve never met the teens, but they learned who they were on the day of the shooting.
On the one-year anniversary of his shooting death, Hall said the past year has been the most difficult of her life.
“Every day waking up without my son. Every day waiting for justice. Justice will never heal anything. There’s no greater loss that I can experience than to lose a child,” Hall said.
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