HOT SPRINGS — A trial date was set Monday for a man twice convicted of killing relatives who is now charged with capital murder in the May shooting death of a woman on U.S. Forest Service property in Garland County.
Randy Gay, 53, will be in Garland County Circuit Court on Jan. 17 for trial on a charge of terroristic threatening stemming from a September 2008 incident in which he was accused of threatening to kill the owner of Ward’s Old Country Store in Hot Springs after the man asked Gay not to stand in front of the store intoxicated.
Gay had received a 12-year suspended sentence for that charge, but after he was arrested and charged in the death of Connie Snow on May 10, the probationary sentence was revoked.
A pretrial hearing for capital murder charges related to Snow’s death was previously set for April 2.
Gay was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his father-in-law at the time, James Kelly, in 1978. He was also convicted in 1991 of seconddegree murder in the shooting death of his father, Glen Harold Gay, 61, in Montgomery County.
Gay was released from parole in November 2001.
In May, police said Gay drove his truck onto U.S. Forest Service property, got into an argument with Snow and shot her in the head in front of several men who were working on the property.
Gay asked the men for help moving the body and later called one of them to say everything was handled and ask, “Are we OK?” The men left the property and called police, according to an affidavit.
Police found Snow’s body in a shallow creek bed a few days later.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 01/10/2012