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.
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.
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.
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.
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