College Station man involved in a 2022 incident that resulted in the death of a woman who was on probation for gun possession4e

A 38-year-old College Station man arrested with a gun by Little Rock police investigating the September 2022 death of a woman has been sentenced to three years probation.

Kenan Charles Smith pleaded guilty to being a felon and possession of a firearm and was sentenced last month by Pulaski County District Judge LaTonya Honorable, court records show. The judge also imposed a $1,000 fine.

According to police reports, 37-year-old Candice Dawn “Candy” Godbold of Conway was found unconscious and with a serious head injury in the parking lot of the Exxon Supermarket at 612 E. Roosevelt Road shortly after midnight on September 3, 2022. Also in the parking lot was the 2015 Chevrolet Sonic Godbold was driving, which had severe front-end damage and a deployed airbag. The mother of one suffered numerous injuries, including skull fractures, and died four days later.

Witnesses described a silver pickup truck leaving the scene, and police caught up with the truck, a 2008 Chevrolet Silverado, at the intersection of Interstate 30. Smith, the driver, was taken into custody and police found an AR-15 rifle on the truck’s console.

Witness Jason Wakefield, 44, of Conway, told investigators he was sleeping in the back seat of the Sonic when he was suddenly awakened as the car pulled off the highway and into the parking lot, and described how he then saw Smith, how he argued with Godbold with a gun in his hand. Wakefield said he calmed Smith and Godbold and Smith put the gun in his truck.

Wakefield said he then saw Godbold get into the Sonic and ram it into Smith’s pickup, causing Smith to drive away as police arrived. He told police he didn’t hear any shots, but 39-year-old Bradley Darnell of Conway, who had been with him and Godbold, told him she had been shot in the head.

Darnell gave a nearly identical version of events, except that he heard a single shot as Smith fired his rifle into the ground before Godbold rammed Smith’s pickup truck. Investigators found a single rifle cartridge casing on the property in addition to an apparent bullet hole in the concrete.

Interviewed by police, Smith also told a similar story, stating that after Godbold rammed his pickup truck, she climbed onto his running board and tried to get his gun. He said he swerved and hit a curb while trying to get her out of his pickup truck. He said she had just fallen off the truck when police arrived.

Smith said he fired one shot from the rifle before Smith rammed his truck, but had not used the weapon in months. He also admitted to hitting Godbold with the rifle. The reports do not describe the dispute between him and Godbold. Smith was on probation at the time for a May 2020 conviction for marijuana trafficking in Pulaski County.

The autopsy did not reveal a gunshot wound, but it was determined that severe head trauma contributed to her death, which authorities ruled a homicide.