Suspect in girl's killing pleads not guilty
 |  Joseph P. Smith |
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| RELATED |
 • Gallery: The Carlie Brucia case
• Gallery: Remembering Carlie
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(CNN) -- A plea of not guilty was entered Friday for Joseph P. Smith, who is charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder in the abduction and killing of an 11-year-old Sarasota, Florida, girl.
The pleas were entered by Smith's lawyer, Adam Tebrugge, after Sarasota Circuit Judge Andrew Owens rejected his motion to throw out the indictment.
Smith, 37, was not in court. He is charged with murder, kidnapping and capital sexual battery on a person younger than 12.
Tebrugge had argued that publicity could have prejudiced the grand jurors who said there was probable cause to pursue the case, but Owens rejected the motion, saying no evidence of such prejudice had been offered.
Carlie Brucia's February 1 abduction captured national attention when videotape from a security camera outside a car wash showed her being led away by a man in a blue jumpsuit. She had been walking home from a friend's house.
Her body was found five days later on the property of Central Church of Christ on Proctor Road near Interstate 75, about two miles from the car wash, law enforcement sources said.
The footage from the car wash does not clearly show the man's face, but he appears to be wearing a uniform and has tattoos on his arms. Smith also has tattoos on his arms, authorities said.
A tip led police to Smith, a former auto mechanic and convicted criminal with 13 arrests on his record. Authorities found Carlie's body because Smith confided in a jailhouse witness after his arrest, according to a warrant. The indictment says Carlie died by "means of ligature strangulation."
After he was charged, questions were raised why the repeat offender and chronic drug abuser was out of jail at the time of the killing. (Full story)
Smith's arrest affidavit said Smith gave "misleading and false" information during an interview in which he admitted owning a yellow 1992 Buick Century station wagon that had been linked to the investigation.
In that February 3 interview, the affidavit says, Smith denied being near the car wash where surveillance video shows Carlie being accosted. But, according to the affidavit, police saw the car in a surveillance video, "in the parking lot of the car wash approximately three minutes prior to Carlie's abduction."
