GULF COUNTY, FL. (THECOUNT) — Stephen Michael Smith, the escaped Georgia inmate who was named as the suspect in a fatal Florida shooting earlier this week, took his own life on Tuesday night inside a vehicle as authorities closed in.
Smith, 34, was spotted operating a vehicle on a highway in Florida’s Gulf County late Tuesday evening. As a task force from the United States Marshals Service and deputies from the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office surrounded the car to apprehend him, Smith placed a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.
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He was pronounced dead at the scene of gunshot injuries.
Smith failed to return from a work release program on Aug. 15 at the Clayton Transitional Center in Georgia, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for robbery, reports 610KONA.
Then on Monday morning at a home near Florida’s Saint Joe Beach, Smith allegedly shot and killed Daniel Lee Upton, 30, of Lakeland, Florida, in a drug deal gone wrong, before fleeing the scene.
Smith’s alleged accomplice, 44-year-old Destiny Jene Terry, was arrested early Tuesday morning after investigators determined she was present during the shooting and helped facilitate the meeting between Smith and the victim.
Terry remains in custody at the Gulf County Detention Facility and faces a principal to second-degree murder charge, according to the sheriff’s office.
Geo quick facts: Gulf County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,863. Its county seat is Port St. Joe. Gulf County is included in the Panama City, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area – Wikipedia.