LITTLE ROCK — Tevin Alexel Bradley was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for setting up a McAlmont robbery which targeted his drug-dealing cousin, but ended up with the men’s aunt being shot and killed by another of the defendant’s cousins.
Bradley, 21, of England, testified Wednesday that all he had done was arrange for his cousin, 20-year-old Veeders Latirus Nelson Jr., to buy some marijuana in January 2011 from another cousin, 26-year-old Byron Lawrence, at the East 43rd Street home Lawrence shared with Evon Henderson, an aunt to both Lawrence and Bradley. Nelson, a distant cousin to Bradley, is not related to Lawrence or Henderson.
Bradley told a Pulaski County jury that he was taken by surprise when Nelson, arguing with Lawrence over the price of a quarterpound of “weed,” suddenly produced a gun. Scared by a “tripping” Nelson brandishing a pistol, Bradley said he bolted from the home when his aunt, in another room, suddenly slammed a door. He said he heard the gunshot from the porch.
“She slammed the door, boom, and I started running,” Bradley said. “Boom, a shot goes off.”
With Nelson behind him, Bradley testified, he ran and got in his car, and drove them both away. He said he didn’t know for several hours that Nelson’s shot had pierced the closed door and killed his aunt. Bradley said he went into hiding for a couple of months, fearing retribution from his family and from Nelson, before police arrested him.
If Bradley had done nothing wrong, why did he run, leaving behind his cousin and his uncle, Edward Henderson, the victim’s brother, senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield asked him. And why did he take Nelson with him, she wondered.
“What was I supposed to do — just leave him at the scene?” Bradley answered. “I’m not saying he forced me, but he had the gun in his hand. No telling what he could do with that gun.”
In her closing arguments, Satterfield invoked the book of Proverbs from the Bible in calling for jurors to convict Bradley.
“The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth,” she told jurors. “Wouldn’t an innocent man have stayed? Would an innocent man have gotten into a car with the man who had just robbed his own family?”
Nelson and Lawrence had never met before that day when Nelson killed Evon Henderson, Satterfield said. Prosecutors, supported by testimony from Nelson and Lawrence, told jurors that Bradley, discovering that Lawrence had just received about five pounds of marijuana, conspired with Nelson to rob Lawrence of the drug.
Testifying as part of an arrangement with prosecutors that got him a 30-year sentence for first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, Nelson admitted to firing the shot that killed Evon Henderson, saying it was an accident.
He took the marijuana and ran out of the house to flee with Bradley, Nelson said. Bradley gave him the gun he used and told him they would “take” the drugs, he said.
Nelson said he pulled the gun without any prompting from Bradley, but Lawrence said Nelson pulled the gun after getting a “nod” from Bradley. Lawrence said he wasn’t initially truthful about what happened when he spoke with sheriff’s investigators because he didn’t want them to know he had been selling marijuana out of the house, but said he was sure Bradley was involved.
Defense attorney Ron Nichols warned jurors in his closing argument that prosecutors were trying to trick them. Authorities have no guns or hard evidence tying Bradley to the slaying, he said. Jurors should put all of the blame on Nelson, Nichols said.
“They don’t have the weed. They don’t have the gun. They don’t have anything,” Nichols said. “These are his relatives. Why would he want to go over there ... and rob them? Tevin had no reason to take Veeders in there and [rob] someone. The deal didn’t go like [Nelson] wanted, so he pulled out a gun.”
Jurors deliberated about five hours to convict Bradley of capital murder and aggravated robbery, with the capital-murder charge carrying an automatic life sentence. By comparison, Nelson can qualify for parole after serving 21 years.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 05/24/2012