Local

Troubled history for man charged in Jacksonville girl's slaying

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Donald James Smith has been in jail for more than a week, charged with kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old Jacksonville girl.

But a portrait of the 56-year-old Smith is emerging.

The Florida Times Union said accounts from the Smith's childhood and adult acquaintances, neighbors and hundreds of pages of court records paint a picture of the career criminal as a young bully and a sexual deviant from at least his early 20s, as well as a lifelong charmer.

Authorities rejected a plea of insanity in one of his early criminal cases after a psychiatric exam.

Smith spent 1999 to 2002 under involuntary civil commitment after meeting the criteria of a violent sexual predator as part of the state's Jimmy Ryce Act.