A Marion County jury has found 16-year-old Kydris Jackson guilty of second-degree murder in the 2023 shooting death of 19-year-old Griffin Smith, a killing that prosecutors say started with a Cash App dispute and ended with gunfire in a pickup truck.
Investigators said the two arranged to meet for what was described as a gun sale after an argument over a Cash App payment. The meetup on Dec. 2, 2023, turned violent, and Smith was shot and later died at a hospital. Jackson now waits in Marion County for a sentencing date that has not yet been scheduled.
Bystanders found Smith in the driver’s seat of his pickup, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, near Marion Oaks Boulevard, according to authorities. Deputies responded to the scene, where the truck had come to a stop with Smith still behind the wheel. As reported by ClickOrlando, detectives say the encounter began at a Dollar General on Marion Oaks Boulevard, where the two agreed to meet. Days after the shooting, investigators arrested Jackson in Alachua County in an unrelated incident, authorities said.
Prosecutors’ Case
In court, prosecutors walked jurors through a trail of physical and digital evidence that they said tied Jackson to the shooting. They told the jury that investigators recovered a Glock and a Sig Sauer from Smith’s pickup and that DNA testing by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement linked material from the Glock to Jackson…