Investigators reconstructed the short sequence from Azoria Jones’ walk with her boyfriend to his return without her and later arrest.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — At about 10:15 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2025, Javier Smith and his 15-year-old girlfriend, Azoria Jones, left his grandmother’s home to pick up food. Within minutes, Jones had been fatally shot on a nearby sidewalk and Smith was running back alone, telling his grandmother that someone else had shot her.
The narrow span of time between the teenagers leaving the house and the gunshot became the backbone of the investigation. A Milwaukee County Transit System bus passing the pair recorded the sound of a shot at about 10:19 p.m., according to the criminal complaint. Its video showed Jones falling and Smith bending over her briefly before running from the area. Smith’s grandmother told police he came back to her home minutes after the two had left together. She said he told her that Jones had been shot and urged her to call 911. She did.
Police responding near North 76th Street and West Silver Spring Drive found Jones on the ground with a fatal gunshot wound. She was pronounced dead there. In the immediate aftermath, officers had a dead teenager, accounts from people who had heard the shooting and an unidentified male seen leaving the area. Publicly, the Milwaukee Police Department initially described the death as an active homicide investigation and sought information from anyone who might know what happened.
Neighbors had heard more than the single gunshot. One witness told investigators she had seen Smith and Jones walking before the sound of gunfire. She then heard Jones making sounds of distress and heard Smith calling to her. When the witness saw Smith running away, she asked whether he needed an ambulance, according to the complaint. She said he did not answer. A second witness reported hearing Jones cry out and then hearing Smith ask whether she was all right and tell her to wake up before he left.
By the next day, authorities had put a name to the victim. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office identified her as Azoria Jones, 15, of Milwaukee and ruled the death a homicide from a gunshot wound. The killing had occurred on a public sidewalk late on a Sunday night, and investigators still had not announced an arrest. The early public record did not explain why Jones had been shot or identify the person who had been beside her when the gun fired.
Jones’ family helped police narrow that question. Relatives told officers that Smith was her boyfriend. An aunt also told investigators that she had previously seen Smith produce a gun while she was with the couple, according to the complaint. Detectives then spoke with Smith’s grandmother, whose description of the couple leaving her home created a clear starting point for the final minutes before the shooting. Smith had been with Jones immediately beforehand and, by the grandmother’s account, returned alone immediately afterward.
The transit recording supplied another part of the chronology. The bus camera captured the teenagers on Silver Spring Drive and documented the gunshot at roughly 10:19 p.m. Investigators said Jones collapsed after the sound and Smith remained near her for only several seconds before fleeing. Police later emphasized that no other vehicle appeared in the area during the critical moments before the shooting. That observation became important because of the story Smith would eventually give during questioning.
Friends and relatives gathered for a vigil near the shooting site on Sept. 23, while the case was still publicly unresolved. Family members called for the person responsible to come forward. The next day, police announced that a 17-year-old had been arrested in connection with Jones’ death. That person was Smith. Authorities said he was taken into custody at a family member’s residence, beginning the interview in which his account of the night changed repeatedly.
Investigators said Smith first denied that he had shot Jones. At one point, he said he had simply heard a shot while the two were walking and then ran. He denied owning a firearm, according to the complaint. As detectives continued questioning him, he offered a different account involving a vehicle. Smith said a car came near them and that he feared someone inside might begin shooting. He told police he was carrying his own gun under his arm when it discharged.
That explanation presented detectives with a problem they could test against the transit video. Police said the recording did not show the car Smith described approaching in the moments before the shot. The video instead documented Smith and Jones together and captured Jones falling. By later in the interview, Smith admitted that he had fired the shot, according to investigators, and said he believed Jones had been struck in the chest. What had started with the claim that another person shot her had become an acknowledgment that the bullet came from Smith’s gun.
The firearm itself was no longer with him. Smith told police that he had gotten rid of it after the shooting, according to the complaint. Reports based on the charging document said he described disassembling the gun and tossing it into a sewer. Detectives also said he gave conflicting information about where he discarded it. That conduct became part of the broader account prosecutors presented after his arrest, along with his departure from the sidewalk and his shifting versions of events.
On Sept. 29, prosecutors formally charged Smith with first-degree reckless homicide with use of a dangerous weapon and possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. The filing transformed the reconstructed timeline into a criminal case. The state’s theory did not depend on proving that another shooter had been present. Instead, prosecutors relied on Smith’s eventual admission, the witnesses who placed him beside Jones, the grandmother’s account and the transit-system recording.
The defense maintained during the initial court proceeding that the shooting had been accidental. Defense attorney Christopher Donovan pointed to Smith’s youth and lack of a violent record and said he had not intended Jones’ death. Court Commissioner Barry Phillips questioned why an accidental shooter would leave an injured girlfriend rather than remain at the scene and explain the mistake when police arrived. The exchange showed that the events after 10:19 p.m. were relevant not only to finding Smith but also to how the parties characterized what had happened.
The criminal case remained pending for more than eight months before Smith decided to plead guilty. On June 4, 2026, he admitted to second-degree reckless homicide, a reduction from the first-degree reckless homicide charge originally filed. The separate underage weapons charge was dismissed and read into the record. The guilty plea meant there would be no trial requiring witnesses to reconstruct the night again before a jury.
A Milwaukee County judge later imposed 12 years in prison and six years of extended supervision. The sentence fixed the legal consequences of a sequence investigators had traced almost minute by minute: the couple at Smith’s grandmother’s home, their departure around 10:15 p.m., the shot at approximately 10:19 p.m., Jones’ collapse, Smith’s flight, his return to the house alone and the 911 call that followed.
The timeline also demonstrates how the meaning of the same few minutes changed as evidence accumulated. To Smith’s grandmother, he returned saying Jones had been shot by someone. To neighbors, a male had run from the wounded teenager. To detectives reviewing the bus video, the recording showed the teenagers together and no vehicle matching Smith’s later account. To prosecutors, those details formed part of a homicide case. And by the time of the June plea, Smith no longer disputed in court that his conduct amounted to second-degree reckless homicide.
Nearly a year after Jones was killed, the investigation that began on the sidewalk has ended in a conviction and sentence. Smith is serving 12 years in prison and faces another six years of extended supervision after confinement. The public record still does not answer every question about what Smith was thinking when he handled the gun, but it establishes the essential sequence: Jones left the house with her boyfriend, was shot minutes later, and never returned.
Author note: Last updated September 21, 2026.