Background: A memorial for shooting victim Griffin Smith in Ocala, Fla. (WCJB). Inset: Griffin Smith (Marion County Sheriff’s Office).
A Florida teenager was charged with second-degree murder a year after he allegedly shot and killed another teenager who attempted to buy a gun from him.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of the 14-year-old boy, who is not being named here due to his age, in a Facebook post on Dec. 4 in connection to the shooting death of 19-year-old Griffin Smith on Dec. 2, 2023. Smith was found with a bullet wound in his white pickup truck, which had crashed near a community center in Ocala, Florida. He was brought to the hospital where he died from his injuries.
Police learned that Smith was set to meet with the suspect, who was 13 years old at the time, to buy a gun from him earlier that afternoon. At some point, the deal went awry and the younger teenager allegedly fired at Smith’s vehicle as he tried to get away. The gun that Smith was intending to buy was found inside the vehicle. It’s not clear that the gun found in the car was the one that fired the fatal shot.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office stated in its post that the suspect was arrested by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office on Dec. 13, 2023, but fled in a stolen vehicle with a firearm.
When he was charged with Smith’s alleged murder, the suspect was already in custody at Marion County Regional Juvenile Detention Center for violating probation on separate charges. Police had attempted to interview him about the Smith shooting in November, but he refused to cooperate. They stated that detectives were able to get a warrant to arrest the suspect after gathering DNA evidence and witness statements that “confirmed” the suspect had committed the alleged crime.
Detectives also reportedly followed bank records and Smith’s social media accounts to bolster their case.
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In an interview with WCJB, a local CBS affiliate, Marion County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Zach Moore said that while the juvenile refused to talk to police, he apparently bragged about the alleged crime to others. He told WCJB, “Making multiple contacts with different folks who either witness accounts or they had heard a story from someone even from allegedly [the suspect] himself who had been boasting about this interaction of him shooting Smith after they had met up to buy and sell a gun.”
