Court documents detail how police tracked down ATM theft suspect

Court documents filed in the case of a man arrested in connection with the attempted theft of the Stockmens Bank ATM in Gainesville provide new details about the months-long investigation that ultimately led authorities to identify a suspect.

The Ozark County Times reported in July that Jaivon Smith had been arrested in connection with the March 26 attempted ATM theft. Now, the probable cause statement filed in the case lays out the investigative steps Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators and local law enforcement took to identify Smith, beginning with a pry bar purchased nearly 200 miles away and continuing through Walmart surveillance footage, vehicle tracking, an anonymous tip, phone records and information from Texas investigators.

According to the probable cause statement, prepared by Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. R. M. Greenan, the officer was looped into the case on March 26, when Ozark County Sheriff Cass Martin requested assistance with the attempted theft of the ATM. Officers determined that the suspects stole a 1999 Ford F-250 pickup from a residence a few miles away. The suspects then reportedly took the stolen truck to Stockmens Bank in Gainesville where they gained access to the machine with a pry bar and then, with assistance of a tow hook, attached the ATM to a chain. After several minutes, they used the truck and chain to pull the ATM from the base at the bank. Ozark County deputies later located the stolen ATM on a city street next to the bank.

Sgt. Greenan arrived at the sheriff’s office to process the stolen pickup later that day. The truck had been brought to the sheriff’s office after it was recovered. “I took numerous photographs of the white, 1999 Ford F-250 pickup… While photographing the pickup, one of the registered owners showed up to the sheriff’s department’s impound lot… [and] indicated we had her permission to examine her property. [She] indicated that they had in fact left the keys inside the ignition in the morning the pickup was stolen, with regret. After searching, [the truck’s owner] stated nothing in her pickup seemed to be foreign or out of place. While at the sheriff’s office, I also took possession of evidence that was seized by Ozark County deputies during their initial portion of the investigation. I seized the evidence and after taking it back to my office, I researched the possible price and location of purchase of each of these items…” 

Sgt. Greenan’s list includes:

• a 36-inch Hyper Yough pry bar, (value $22.88)

• Vulcan forged, Clevis tow hooks, 15-inch, grade 80, orange in color and both connected with a small link of chain ($69.99, available numerous places on the internet)

• two Badlands “APEX” 12,000-pound HT 3/8 steel winch hook ($26.99, sold exclusively at Harbor Freight)

• 1/2-inch by 20-foot grade 70 truckers chain ($119.99, exclusively sold at Harbor Freight)

• two partially empty American Honey whiskey shooter bottles (available “nearly everywhere”)

Working with a Walmart investigator

On March 30, Sgt. Greenan contacted a senior investigator with Walmart Global Investigations and gave the investigator a run down of the evidence they found in the pickup and other details from the case. That list included the Hyper Tough pry bar, which the officer hoped would be a detail that the Walmart investigator could use to help track down a purchase at a store within regional proximity that was also within the time frame of the attempted ATM theft. 

The investigator took the information and searched the store’s databases, preparing an Excel spreadsheet with instances when someone purchased that exact pry bar, in the greater Ozarks region and within a reasonable time before or after the crime, details that Sgt. Greenan had provided. 

“One purchase stood out to me,” Greenan wrote in his report. That was a pry bar purchased at a Walmart in Sedalia, Missouri, at 10:25 p.m. March 25, 2026, the night when the attempted ATM theft occurred in Gainesville, nearly 200 miles away from the store. 

The spreadsheet entry that the Walmart investigator made of that purchase showed that the customer bought the 36-inch Hyper Tough pry bar, two pairs of Hyper Tough gloves (medium and large) and a HR two-piece screwdriver set. Sgt. Greenan searched the internet for the Hyper Tough gloves, and photos of the gloves showed that they were available in a white or light-colored option with knit on the back of the hands and a plastic-type gripping substance on the fingers and palm. He noted the Hyper Tough logo is also printed on the top of that particular pair of gloves. 

Sgt. Greenan then asked the Walmart investigator to find any corresponding receipts or videos of the customers making those particular purchases and any photos or videos of the vehicle those individuals left or arrived in. On April 1, the investigator sent a video from the store that showed “two, obvious African American male subjects, one noticeable larger than the other, both wearing purple and both ‘bare handing’ the pry bar that they purchased,’” Greenan’s report says. The Walmart investigator also sent still photographs of the SUV the pair got into and left the store, heading toward the Murphy’s Gas Station in Sedalia.

Sgt. Greenan compared the still photographs with home security footage from the house where the truck was stolen in Gainesville prior to the attempted ATM theft. That footage showed, at 2:13 a.m. that morning, what Sgt. Greenan says is “in my opinion identical vehicles.” Time stamps on the still photographs from the Sedalia Walmart and the security footage at the Gainesville home show a 3 hour and 31 minute difference, a distance that would take about 3 hours and 21 minutes to drive if adhering to local speed limits. 

Flock camera footage

After uncovering that evidence, Sgt. Greenan then attempted to find out who the two suspects were in the video and the vehicle that was pictured in the still photos. 

“I had highway patrol representatives in Sedalia contact Murphy’s USA gas station, and the suspect vehicle was, in fact, coming through the station but was lucky enough to be at an extreme angle to not have the registration (license plate) captured,” he wrote.

Sgt. Greenan then contacted Caleb Hine, the Missouri State Highway Patrol tactical analysis unit supervisor to assist in locating Flock camera footage of the vehicle, using his known parameters. Flock cameras are automated license plate reading camera systems that police departments use on area highways and roadways, capturing and cataloging information of passing vehicles on those public streets. The cameras use high-resolution photos taken of passing cars, and artificial intelligence “reads” the license plate numbers and vehicle characteristics. The data is then uploaded to a national database. Those records can be used to help narrow down specific vehicle sightings at a specific place.

Hine said he was unable to locate any usable footage linked to that vehicle, but he knew that the Sedalia Police Department has Flock or license plate reading-type cameras in close proximity to the Murphy’s gas station. He said he was in the process of obtaining the footage in hopes of identifying the vehicle. 

Cell phone tower dump search warrants

Sgt. Greenan then applied for and received three cell “tower dump” search warrants through the Ozark County court system, which requires a cellular provider to turn over time and location data for every mobile device that connected to a specific tower during a designated time window. The three warrants were for AT&T, T-Mobile and Cellco/Verizon. “All three of these warrants asked for the same information, allowing the comparison of two different known points that suspects in this investigation were at, Sedalia, Missouri Walmart on March 25, and Gainesville, on March 26,” Greenan wrote. “I will await any production information received from these warrants. As of this report, I have only received one response from these warrants, and it was from AT&T indicating no usable data was uncovered.”

An anonymous call

At 12:26 a.m. June 22, the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office received a telephone call from an unknown woman who said on the recorded line that she knew who robbed the ATM in Gainesville. The woman indicated that “Jay Smith” was responsible. After giving the man’s name, the woman abruptly ended the phone call. Ozark County Sheriff Cass Martin forwarded a recording of the phone call to Sgt. Greenan. The phone number dialed into the dispatch line was searched, and the phone owner’s identification and phone number were revealed. 

“After listening to the call myself, it was obviously an African American female who reported the information about ‘Jay Smith.’ During the call, the female stated Smith was from Houston, Texas, not Dallas, Texas, and she had seen his photograph from a ‘picture,’” Sgt. Greenan’s report said. “I had sent numerous information bulletins about any information and a few of the bulletins stated these subjects may be from the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas, meaning this particular female had seen one of these bulletins.”

With that information in hand, Sgt. Greenan contacted Criminal Investigator Mark Willey, a Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper who is assigned to a division that works with violent crimes in the Houston, Texas area. Investigator Willey told Sgt. Greenan that he’d located two potential females associated with the particular telephone number that was used to make the call into the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department dispatch line. There was one white and one black woman associated with the phone number. The black woman’s number was searched in CashApp, which then gave the officers a name. 

Sgt. Greenan said that on June 22 he attempted to call and message the woman on that number throughout the day, without success. 

Texas investigator Willey was also able to locate an associate of the woman whose name was Jaivon Jerrell Daileon Smith. Investigator Willey sent Sgt. Greenan a photograph of Smith, as well as a basic pedigree information sheet showing his date of birth. “The photograph appeared to be an older photograph of Smith (seemed to be skinnier in the face), and I could see similarities in this photograph and the photograph of my suspect in Sedalia, Missouri on March 25, 2026. This pedigree showed Smith to be 6’ 01” and 250 pounds, again matching the larger black male in the photograph at Walmart on March 25,” the report says.

Social media clues

With the new information, Sgt. Greenan continued the investigation process by contacting Caleb Hine again in the MSHP tactical analysis unit in Jefferson City. “Hine also has the ability and access to numerous other investigative programs,” Greenan explained. The officer also applied for a search warrant through the Ozark County court system allowing the legal search of the phone number linked to [the woman who they suspected made the anonymous dispatch call].

Throughout the day on June 25, Sgt. Greenan was receiving updates from both Texas investigator Willey and Hine. “Hine was able to locate a program used to assist us called idiCORE (Interactive Data, Inc). 

“IdiCORE showed Smi-th’s most recent cellular telephone number… [which was] an AT&T service listed telephone number. Numerous open source tools linked [the number… to Smith’s numerous social media accounts: TikTok, Telegram and iCloud linked through TikTok. More investigative leads have led me to positively identify Smith as one of the suspects captured on surveillance footage from Walmart in Sedalia on March 25, just hours before the theft at…Gainesville. I have located a recent jail booking photograph taken of Smith during his latest arrest in Harris County, Texas. Smith’s criminal history shows he is still on parole until 07-12-2027 for numerous crimes to include burglary, robbery, theft of property and unlawful possession of a firearm. Investigative leads also show [name redacted] and Smith may possibly reside with each other as husband and wife, and another document shows [redacted name] as Smith’s emergency contact…”

Cell phone location

Sgt. Greenan applied for search warrants for both Smith and the woman’s phone numbers. Smith’s has an AT&T service, and the woman has Verizon, according to the court documents. A judge signed those warrants, and Greenan was given the green light to proceed. “The search warrant was uploaded to Verizon’s portal for law enforcement, and I await the production data from the service. I also contacted…a senior investigator with Walmart corporation. [Name redacted] is a great asset and is very skilled in located anything involving Walmart throughout the United States. [That person] was given the new particulars of this updated information. A short time later, [he] sent me an electronic mail that depicted Smith on June 12, 2026, at [5:39 p.m.] at a Walmart checkout in Spring, Texas. As luck would have it, the picture and video footage depicted Smith wearing the very same “Rolling Stones” t-shirt and blue shorts he was wearing on the evening of March 25, in Sedalia, Missouri Walmart, just hours before the theft of the ATM in Gainesville, Missouri. A side-by-side comparison of the shirt in particular showed the sleeves and bottom of the shirt seemed to be cut, or at the very least rolled to some extent as if it had been cut at some point. [The person] also showed a receipt of his purchases and a black passenger vehicle (2004 Acura) bearing Texas Registration… that checks to … (investigative leads show this to possibly be Smith’s mother) from… that Smith left Walmart in,” Greenan reported. 

On June 26, Hine told Sgt. Greenan he had asked one of his contacts in the northeast Houston, Texas, area about what “GBC” might mean, because Smith used that hashtag on one of his social media accounts. Hine indicated his contact in that area said that the gang intelligence unit in Houston indicated GBC is a common moniker for those who “hit,” or attempt to steal, ATMs. The GBC stands for “get bag of cash,” slang for stealing money or hitting a target. 

On June 5, Sgt. Greenan received the AT&T production on Smith’s phone number. A very quick search of the data gave a GPS coordinate, which showed Smith’s cell phone was activating off a tower located just south of Highway 160, still in Gainesville, as of 2:52 a.m. June 5. Hine also confirmed the data and was later able to take the usable production data and transform that into usable maps showing Smith’s cell phone using the tower just south of Highway 160.

Sgt. Greenan’s report says that he planned to apply for arrest warrant through the Ozark County court system for the arrest of Smith in connection with the theft and destruction of the ATM, which he notes cost $52,426 to replace.  

Held on a $50,000 cash-only bond

Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney Lee Pipkins filed a case on July 10, charging Smith with stealing $25,000 or more/teller machine or contents, property damage of a teller machine, both class C felonies, and stealing a motor vehicle, a class D felony. He was arrested without incident in Highlands, Texas, a suburb of Houston, a few days after the case was filed. He was transported to Missouri and transferred to Ozark County Jail on July 21. 

He is now being held in the Wright County Jail on behalf of the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department on a $50,000 cash-only bond. Defense attorney James Coatney of Springfield has filed his notice as Smith’s counsel. Pipkins is representing the state. Smith is scheduled to be arraigned in circuit court before Circuit Judge Craig Carter at 9 a.m. Sept. 9.

There has not yet been an announcement of a co-defendant charged in the case.