PINE BLUFF — An Arkansas woman accused of killing two people was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday and sentenced to 60 years in prison.
It was the second trial for Ymari Boyce-Reid, 21, after an earlier jury couldn't agree on a verdict. Jurors deliberated for about five hours Wednesday before convicting Boyce-Reid of first-degree murder, rather than capital murder, with which she was charged.
Boyce-Reid, 21, was charged in the Jan. 16, 2006, slayings of Angela Hicks, 36, and Christopher Allen, 39, in the front yard of a Pine Bluff home.
Attorneys for Boyce-Reid contend that Angela Bell, 29, who was in the car with Boyce-Reid at the time of the killings, did the shooting. Allen and Hicks also were in the vehicle when they were killed.
Bell testified Monday that she saw Boyce-Reid shoot Allen and Hicks. Bell said she ran from the car to a nearby house and got a ride to a relative's home where she called authorities.
Boyce-Reid was arrested two days later hiding in the trunk of a car in a garage in the Dollarway area. Investigators said she burned the clothes she wore the night of the shootings, as well as a Glock .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun police believe was the murder weapon.
A spring that appeared to be from a Glock pistol was found in a burn barrel at the house, and a slide and barrel from a Glock Model 21, .45-caliber pistol that were rusted and appeared to have been burned were found at another location.
Prosecutors introduced into evidence a confession that police said Boyce-Reid wrote during an interview with then-police Lt. Marx Mitchell on Jan. 18, 2006. Mitchell testified that Boyce-Reid wrote the statement after he told her she would feel better if she would put the truth on paper. In the statement, Boyce-Reid said she shot the two after they made sexual advances to her.
Boyce-Reid's lawyer, John Kearney, said his client denied writing the statement.