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The State Attorney’s Office will seek the death penalty for two men for the ambush shooting of a 15-year-old girl and two companions outside a Cocoa-area restaurant Oct. 6.

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JONTERICH L. SMITH, 21, and XAZAVIER E. BUTLER, 20, were indicted in November for first-degree murder with a firearm for the killing of Ka’Ryah Duncan as she sat in a car outside a seafood-and-chicken restaurant on Clearlake Road. Both also were charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder for wounding two 18-year-old men from Palm Bay who drove with Duncan to the restaurant and were waiting with her for a food order.

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Among the aggravating factors cited by Assistant State Attorney Kari Kies in the notices of intent to seek the death penalty for Smith and Butler:

• The defendants “knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons.”
• The murder, a capital felony, “was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner” without any legal justification.

Smith and Butler are being held without bond in the Brevard County Jail.

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Brevard County Sheriff’s investigators say Smith went to the restaurant for carry-out food and saw the victims, who he knew, in the parking lot. Smith drove away in a Dodge Durango for a few moments, then returned at about 4:30 p.m. and stopped behind the victims’ white sedan, blocking it in.  

Smith and Butler then climbed out the driver’s side of the black SUV with assault rifles while a third, not-yet-identified assailant exited the passenger side with a handgun, investigators say. The three fired dozens of rounds at the victims, killing Duncan. Security video recorded the attack.