PANAMA CITY — Authorities have abandoned their case against a driver accused of fleeing the scene of a nightclub shootout in which a 19-year-old was killed, according to court documents.
State prosecutors dropped the charge Monday against Marcus Justin Mathis, 26, of accessory after the fact to aggravated battery with a firearm. The charge had been downgraded from accessory to murder after Mathis was arrested along with Khiry Ross, 25, in June when a nightclub argument led to the shooting death of 19-year-old Jshun Smith.
However, prosecutors determined Mathis could not have known Smith lay dead in the roadway near KJ’s Nightclub, 908 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., when he and Ross sped off, according to the state’s motion to abandon the charges.
“The State cannot show beyond a reasonable doubt that (Mathis) knew that Khiry Ross committed a homicide at the time he drove Mr. Ross from the general area,” prosecutors wrote. Mathis “did not see the actual shooting, and after picking up Mr. Ross in (his) vehicle, Mr. Ross claimed he shot in some type of defensive manner.”
The prosecution included that Mathis’ cooperation during the investigation assisted in the case.
Smith was shot in the head at about 3:20 a.m. on June 9 outside of KJ’s while hanging out in the passenger side of an SUV. Officers reportedly learned Ross and Smith had been in a confrontation inside the club over a mutual female acquaintance, and the argument spilled outside in the parking lot where several shots rang out, according to Panama City Police reports.
“I was like, ‘Baby, just go,’ ” Smith’s girlfriend told police. “He was like trying to get mad and stuff … and the next thing I know they start shooting.”
Ross has told investigators he fired shots in the air before the gunfire broke out from both sides. Smith, a passenger in the SUV, was struck in the head and fell out onto the roadway as the vehicle tried to speed away, police reported.
Mathis said he was separating another fight when the shots rang out from behind him, he told investigators. He and Ross separated after the gunfire, but Mathis later picked up Ross to drive him to a relative’s house, he said.
“Once he got in the car, he started crying and he was like ‘man, I think I hit him,’ ” Mathis said. “He just said, ‘man, I think I hit him, man.’ ”
At the relative’s house, Ross allegedly discarded the gun into a body of water, Mathis said.
Although prosecutors abandoned charges against Mathis, Ross is still in custody and charged with second-degree murder with a firearm, felon in possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm in public. A trial date has not been set in the case.