TUCKER — A convicted murderer and rapist serving a life sentence was stabbed to death while working in a prison laundry Thursday morning at the state’s maximum security unit, officials said.
Inmate Eddie Smith Jr., 44, was stabbed once in the neck with a blade from a small pocketknife, prison spokeswoman Dina Tyler said. Officials allege that inmate Charles V. Moorman, who is serving five life sentences, attacked Smith.
“It was a single strike and that was it,” Tyler said.
She said authorities are investigating what led to the altercation, and that the men may have had some sort of “incident” two or three weeks ago leading up to it. She had no further details on what prompted the attack.
Smith was taken to a hospital in Little Rock, where he died Thursday morning, Tyler said. Moorman was in isolation and was being questioned by authorities, she said.
The prison is also investigating how the pocketknife, which is contraband, got into the facility.
Smith was serving a life sentence without parole for the 1996 capital murder of Debbie Halford, a Stuttgart convenience store clerk. He was arrested nearly 10 years after the crime when he was already in prison for three rape convictions.
Moorman, 59, was convicted in 1981 in Pulaski County of three counts of capital murder, one first-degree murder count and an aggravated robbery charge.
“These are maximum security inmates and it shows something that can happen at any minute,” Tyler said.