Police find suspected car involved in Eastside murder; family of 38-year-old father seeking answers

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said investigators have found the car involved in the murder of Connell Smalls. Family members identified the 38-year-old who was gunned down on A. Phillip Randolph Boulevard this past weekend.

“I didn’t want it to be true,” Smalls’ mother, Rae Young, said. “I still haven’t come to terms with it.”

Young lives in Georgia and said when she got the call he was shot, she started driving down to Jacksonville.

Another call came in telling her that he didn’t make it.

“I couldn’t stay in the car. I was out of control,” she said.

Police said the shooter was seen leaving the area in a Toyota sedan, which has now been recovered, but it’s unclear whether officials have named any suspects.

Action News Jax law and safety expert Dale Carson said the suspected car is a significant piece of evidence.

“You can track the ownership of the car, who had the car, was it stolen, all of those points of issues,” Carson said. “So you have a trail immediately with a tag and a car. More than that today, you have DNA evidence, and that will be all over the interior of that car. Some of that will belong to an owner, a thief, but perhaps the person being accused of murder.”

Smalls’ sister, Tracy Smalls, said the family wants answers.

“It means everything because we deserve answers. We want to know why,” she said. “He didn’t have any enemies.”

Court records show Connell Smalls did have a criminal history, mostly drug-related charges. His sister said the legal issues were behind him and insisted his focus was on his four kids.

“We’re not saying he’s a saint or anything like that, but he definitely is not a violent person or out to hurt anybody or wouldn’t take anything from anybody. That wasn’t his character at all,” she said.

Young said her son didn’t deserve this.

“You don’t birth kids to lose them. You don’t. You don’t raise them to lose them,” Young said. “I never imagined I would be burying my son.”

If you know anything about the murder, call the police.

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