JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The life of a Jacksonville man who murdered his ex-girlfriend, her teenage daughter and her new boyfriend is expected to be in the hands of a jury Thursday morning.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys made their final cases to the jury over whether Pinkney Carter, 69, should live or die for the 2002 murders. Carter was sentenced years ago, but because of changing death penalty laws, he is being re-sentenced.
This means family members of Carter's murder victims are reliving the crime and court proceedings. This has included seeing photographs of their loved ones’ bodies that were shown in court and testimony from family members about the night of the murders.
Prosecutors say Elizabeth Reed was murdered by her ex-boyfriend after breaking off their relationship. Carter also shot and killed Reed’s 16-year-old daughter Courtney Smith and her boyfriend Glen Pafford in the Arlington home prosecutors say Carter used to live in, too.
“Three innocent victims were murdered and three children were left without a mother,” said Bernardo Enrique De La Rionda with the State Attorney’s Office 4th Circuit.
Prosecutors claim Carter planned the murders and that his motive is clear.
“I’m asking you to go back in time to what this man did," De La Rionda said. "Each victim was shot in the head! None of his shots missed!”
Defense attorneys disagree, saying it was not planned nor cold and calculated.
“This was a hotblooded murder based on jealousy, not on rage," said Defense Attorney Alan Chipperfield. "And it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t a deliberate act of thinking process. It was hotblooded.”
Defense attorneys told the jury a different version of what happened.
“There was an accidental shooting during a scuttle over a gun with Courtney Smith," Chipperfield said. "And then there is an absolutely horrible, wrong, terrible reaction afterwards shooting two other people.”
The judge instructed the jury to return at 8:30 a.m. Thursday for jury instructions and then they will deliberate and weigh Carter’s life.