Griffin Chase Smith was 19 when he was killed after arranging to buy a firearm on the afternoon of Saturday, December 2, 2023. The meeting was set by text near a Dollar General on Marion Oaks Boulevard. Investigators say the seller, a teenager, planned to rob Griffin by claiming a digital payment hadn’t gone through. When Griffin tried to drive away in his white 2020 Dodge Ram pickup, the teen opened fire, striking him multiple times.

Griffin, remembered by family as kind-hearted and by his girlfriend’s father as quiet and respectful, managed to drive about a mile before stopping in a wooded area behind the Marion Oaks Community Center. Deputies responding to a reported vehicle accident found him with gunshot wounds; he was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries. Detectives used text messages, cellphone data and witness interviews to identify a suspect; that person was detained in another county days after the shooting in a stolen vehicle linked to travel to the meeting.

Did anyone in the Marion Oaks area see the white 2020 Dodge Ram or the stolen vehicle around December 2, 2023?