22 years after the triple murder that sent shockwaves through Jacksonville, a convicted murderer is being sentenced again

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – Courtney Smith was only 16 years old when she was shot and killed by a man she thought she trusted. Pinkney “Chip” Carter dated her mother for three years and lived with Liz Reed and her children for a time during that time.

A home video shows him wrestling and laughing with Courtney's younger siblings.

That changed on July 22, 2002, when Carter, who had moved out of Reed's house, was furious when he found Glenn Pafford in the house where he had once lived with Reed. Pafford and Reed worked together at a local grocery store. Carter confronted the two – with a gun.

When the shooting ended, Courtney Smith was unconscious and had a gunshot wound to the head; her mother and Pafford were both dead. The 16-year-old died a few days later.

Carter fled Jacksonville, sparking a nationwide manhunt. He drove to Texas, where he swam the Rio Grande to get to Mexico. He was arrested for gun possession, but paid his prison guards $1,000 to get out after News4JAX found him locked up in Reynosa. We tried to interview him, but he hid from our camera.

Carter's crimes sent shockwaves through the quiet Arlington neighborhood where Reed lived. Three dead, including a teenager, was not an everyday occurrence in Jacksonville at the time.

The case was featured in People Magazine. Carter was even featured on the show America's Most Wanted.

Nearly a year later, a police officer in Kentucky saw a wanted poster with Carter's face on it and remembered arresting him for public intoxication on New Year's Day 2004. Carter had already been released, but the officer tracked him down and arrested him again.

Jacksonville police flew Carter from Kentucky to Jacksonville to face trial. In 2005, Carter was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting Reed, her boyfriend and her daughter. The same jury that found him guilty also recommended that he be sentenced to death. A judge upheld that recommendation.

For Reed and Pafford's family, it was justice because they knew that the killer of their loved ones would never hurt anyone again.

But 12 years later, a 2017 Florida Supreme Court ruling prompted the state legislature to change the way the death penalty is applied, requiring a death sentence to be imposed by a unanimous jury rather than by a majority, as was the case at the time of Carter's conviction.

Although the state legislature amended the law again in 2023, requiring only an 8-4 majority, Carter's case fell under the previous ruling and he was granted a retrial.

Jury selection for the re-sentencing began on Monday, with opening arguments beginning Thursday morning.

The families of Reed and Pafford must relive the horrors of that day in July 2002 in court as a new jury considers whether their loved ones' killer should spend life in prison or return to death row.