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EXCLUSIVE: Man who arrested Donald Smith in 1992 thought he put him away for good

In 1992, he arrested Smith for the near-kidnapping of several girls, including Kerri-Anne Buck, who testified against Smith in court this week.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The detective who first arrested convicted rapist and murderer Donald Smith in 1992 for attempted kidnapping said he was shocked to see him get out of jail.

Jim Parker is now an investigator for the St. Johns County State Attorney’s Office, but he previously worked for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for about 30 years.

In 1992, he arrested Smith for the near-kidnapping of several girls, including Kerri-Anne Buck, who testified against Smith in court this week.

“You don’t forget something like that, you know, that’s a face I’ll never, never forget, I see his face every time my kids go outside to play,” Buck said in an exclusive interview with First Coast News after her testimony.

Detective Parker told First Coast News it’s a case he can never forget either.

More than a quarter of a century has gone by since the day he arrested Smith, but he can vividly remember the encounter.

“He told me ... after he admitted to showing the photographs and I told him I was arresting him for that, he told me, ‘this is a chicken sh*t three-day jail case,' Parker said. "That’s exactly what he said, that’s a direct quote."

The arrest happened after Smith was driving around an old van on the Southside trying to lure young girls over by showing them pornographic magazines and following them down the street.

“He believed there was nothing we could get him on, he was just arrogant and cocky," he said.

At that time, Parker thought he’d put Smith away for good.

“When I found out it was him, I was like wait a minute, I thought I arrested that guy,” he said. “Why he got out I don’t know, but I remember the case very well.”

Smith was released from prison in 2002. This week, experts testified in court that he’d been arrested 29 times across Florida and Georgia. Many experts argued that Smith should never have gotten out of jail in the first place and Parker agreed.

“You do the very best you can, you try, and if there are some aspects of system failure, it’s hard to absolutely point that finger, but you know, nevertheless, that’s no reason why a person would do this to another person," he said.

He said even if red flags were missed in the past, there’s no one to blame but Smith.

“You can’t just go in that direction because still he is responsible for his actions," he said.

Smith said more than recalling his interaction with Donald Smith, he remembers his interview with Buck when she first brought her near-kidnapping experience to police. She was 13 years old at the time.

“She truly felt, had she not hid that day in the schoolyard and took precautions to protect herself, she would have been gone, and I firmly believe that and she was traumatized from that, as we all know from the trial,” Parker said.

Parker believes there could be more of a criminal history to Smith than what has been recovered and he hopes cold case investigators continue looking into it.

“I was discussing that with some of the investigators up in Duval County and it’s hard for us to believe a predator like this doesn’t have another victim somewhere," he said.

The State Attorney’s Office said it has not uncovered any other victims in its investigation.

As for his feelings on the outcome this week, he said he’s not a supporter of the death penalty in general, but he did not want Smith to be able to be free again.

“I’m not a proponent of death in every case, but for this particular case, absolutely,” Parker said. “If he had been incarcerated, she would never have died, but that’s not how it happened.”

He said it’s not the time to point fingers because now he believes justice was served and Smith is the only one to blame.

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