At a next-day press conference following the arrest last year of a local realtor charged with fatally shooting her live-in boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Flowers depicted her as a cold-blooded murderer.
Flowers not only convicted Donna Smith in the local news media, but – in a reckless rush to judgment – he also inflamed the community by saying she was “lying in wait” to gun down Jeffrey Simmons after a domestic disturbance at Vista Royale.
Last week, 18 months later, Circuit Judge Robert Meadows rejected the sheriff’s flawed account.
Ruling that state prosecutors failed to produce the “clear and convincing evidence” needed to disprove Smith’s claim she acted in self-defense, Meadows dismissed the second-degree murder charge against her.
He granted Smith immunity from criminal prosecution under Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law, which allows people to protect themselves – using deadly force if necessary – if they fear bodily harm.
“It was a just ruling,” Smith’s Vero Beach attorney, Andy Metcalf, said after the Meadows order became public shortly before 5 p.m. last Wednesday. “No other reasonable decision could be made.”
Metcalf, in a seven-page motion filed in April, challenged both the narrative presented by Flowers and the case brought by the State Attorney’s Office, and asked Meadows to dismiss the charge against his client.
After a two-day hearing – at which the standard of proof required was merely a preponderance of the evidence, not the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt threshold of criminal trials – Meadows accepted Metcalf’s claim that Simmons provoked the shooting by entering Smith’s office without permission, ignoring a verbal warning, and threatened her life.
The judge wrote in his order that he based his decision on the “totality of the evidence,” including the testimony of prosecution witnesses during the hearing.
“Absolutely no credible argument could be made that she went after him,” Metcalf said. “He went to her office looking for her.”
That’s not the story Flowers told reporters less than 24 hours after the shooting, which occurred shortly after 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2024.
Instead, the sheriff said Smith, now 50, followed Simmons, who was 57, to the Vista Royal complex’s office area after a “verbal disturbance” that prompted him to leave the couple’s Vista Royale residence and drive off in a golf cart.
“Based on the scene that we’re seeing, where the homicide occurred,” Flowers said, “it appears as though Ms. Smith was waiting for Mr. Simmons to arrive at the office space.”
When Simmons arrived, the sheriff continued, “Ms. Smith stands up. He’s walking in the door. She fires two shots – one which strikes him and kills him almost immediately. He hits the ground and, at that point, she gets on the phone with our dispatchers.”
Smith was taken into custody only minutes after deputies arrived. They determined, according to Flowers, that her initial statements were “not consistent with the scene we see.”
The sheriff went so far as to say “it’s been proven” Smith’s claim that Simmons was chasing her was false, basing his assertion – and the “lying in wait” allegation – on visual evidence only hours into a far-from-complete homicide investigation.
Metcalf offered a vastly different account in his motion, though he and the sheriff did agree on one compelling point: The couple had a “tumultuous” relationship.
But unlike Flowers, who said there was no evidence of a “struggle” at the couple’s home – other than the “verbal disturbance” heard by neighbors, we can assume – Metcalf wrote that Simmons verbally and physically assaulted Smith before he walked out.
Metcalf alleged that Smith was “grabbed by her arms” and “shoved onto a couch and then pinned on the ground” by Simmons, who was intoxicated and in a jealous rage, having accused her of “looking at other men” in a bar they visited earlier.
In his motion, Metcalf wrote that Simmons, who managed the American Bar & Grill and golf course at Vista Royale, was “very open about his ‘special forces’ military training and the fact that he was a seventh-degree black belt in a martial arts discipline.”
Simmons was also an “avid gun enthusiast,” the attorney added.
Metcalf’s motion described a frightening altercation in which Simmons allegedly placed his forearm to Smith’s upper chest and throat, causing her to “gasp and choke” before scratching and kicking her way free.
Smith screamed that she would call 911, the motion states, and Simmons left the residence.
“Post-arrest photos demonstrate grip marks on Ms. Smith’s arms,” Metcalf wrote, “and wounds to Mr. Simmons created by Ms. Smith’s defensive actions.”
According to Metcalf, Smith then packed some “necessary items” to avoid returning to the residence that night and drove to her leased office, located in a building adjacent to Simmon’s office at Vista Royale.
She planned to sleep on a cot, which the attorney said she had done on previous occasions.
At some point, Simmons returned to the couple’s residence to put his dog in its crate and drove back to the office area, “presumably to search for Ms. Smith,” Metcalf wrote.
His repeated phone calls and text messages to Smith went unanswered – until she finally called back, “telling him to leave her alone, that she is not coming back.”
Minutes before the shooting, Metcalf wrote, surveillance video showed Simmons approaching the building that contained Smith’s office, where, upon seeing the lights from her boyfriend’s golf cart, she disabled the sliding-glass door with a broom handle.
Simmons, though, had a key.
As Metcalf’s motion states, Simmons entered the office and Smith screamed: “Jeff, stop! I have a gun! Get out! I mean it!”
Simmons allegedly replied, “Go ahead, shoot me, (expletive)!” He then stepped closer, prompting Smith to fire a warning shot with her 9-millimeter handgun.
Simmons stopped moving, looked directly at Smith and threatened to kill her, telling her she was “(expletive) dead.”
Smith fired again, and the shot struck Simmons above his left eye. She immediately called 911, said she had shot her boyfriend and dutifully followed the dispatcher’s instructions to leave the gun on the desk and stay on the phone while she waits outside the building for deputies to arrive.
When deputies arrived, however, Smith invoked her right to remain silent and refused to talk without having her attorney present.
Is that why – despite such flimsy evidence – she was arrested at the scene, before any serious investigation could be conducted?
“The Sheriff’s Office saw a dead body, he was unarmed, and the defendant didn’t make a statement,” Metcalf said.
It wasn’t as if Smith was a threat to flee, though: If she were going to run, she probably wouldn’t have called 911 and done exactly as she was told.
Flowers, as usual, did not respond to Vero Beach 32963’s request last week for comment on Meadows’ ruling. The request was sent via text message to Lieutenant Kevin Jaworski, the Sheriff’s Office’s public information officer.
Metcalf, however, said he believes there was a rush to judgment.
“I don’t know the exact time of the press conference, but he had to be aware there was video surveillance,” the attorney said. “How could they go through it all?
“There are ways to inform the community without jumping to conclusions not based in fact,” he added. “There’s no need to make your case to the press. Why not reserve comment and take the time needed to get a better idea of what really happened, rather than convict someone in the media on Day 1?”
