Two arrested in Smith County shooting

SMITH COUNTY – Our news partner, KETK, reports that two people have been arrested following a Saturday morning morning murder in Smith County.

According to the Smith County Sheriff’s Office, they received a 911 call around 2 a.m. on Saturday after a person reported seeing a man lying on the side of the road in Flint. Further information revealed the man had been shot.

When deputies, arrived the victim, James Littlejohn, 39, was unresponsive. EMS transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The victim’s body was taken to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas for an autopsy. An investigation was launched immediately and authorities learned that the suspect, John Floyd McDaniel, 55, was in the back passenger seat of a vehicle driven by Ashley Kate Joiner.

“They went to a location inside the Lakeway Harbor subdivision and picked up the victim, who sat in the front passenger seat,” the sheriff’s office stated. “The suspect allegedly pulled a gun on the victim in an attempt to rob him of undisclosed items.”

McDaniel allegedly then shot Littlejohn, who exited the vehicle and ran across Highway 155 before collapsing. McDaniel and Joiner then fled the scene, officials said.

McDaniel was found in Shreveport, La. Saturday morning around 10:45 a.m. by the Shreveport Police Department at the Economy Inn on IH 20 near the Shreveport Airport. McDaniel was been taken to the Caddo Parrish Jail on an unrelated warrant. Smith County investigators are in the process of obtaining an arrest warrant for capital murder on McDaniel.

While Joiner was arrested on Monday for capital murder by terror threat/other felony, and is being held at the Smith County Jail.