LITTLE ROCK — Three days after the state Crime Laboratory identified a body found in a patch of woods south of Little Rock, police said homicide detectives plan on interviewing the man’s son about the death.
The lab ruled Friday that the body found by a pair of teenagers Nov. 8 was that of Charlie Hardin, 70, who was last seen Sept. 25. Charlie Hardin was the father of Opio Hardin, who was driving his father’s truck when police arrested him in a separate Oct. 4 shooting.
Little Rock Police Department spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said Opio Hardin, who faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting of Torence Nelson, has not been charged in his father’s slaying, nor has he been officially labeled as a suspect, but that homicide detectives will be meeting with him to discuss his father’s killing.
Opio Hardin was identified by several witnesses as the man who shot Nelson, 37, after a late-night argument at 4717 W. 22nd St.
According to arrest reports, Opio Hardin was at the house with half a dozen others, some of whom were playing dominoes, when Hardin and Nelson started arguing.
Witnesses told police that Hardin left and Nelson put on his headphones and was listening to music when Hardin came back inside the residence, walked up to Nelson and shot him in the head at close range.
Hardin was arrested early the next morning about 10 blocks from the shooting, reports said, after he was pulled over while driving a white 2009 Toyota Tacoma that belonged to his father. Davis said there were other “personal effects” belonging to Charlie Hardin in the truck.
Shortly after Opio Hardin’s arrest, police said, his brother, Chaka Hardin, went to Charlie Hardin’s house and called police, saying that Charlie Hardin hadn’t been seen by family for at least a week.
Davis said the homicide detectives investigating the Nelson homicide knew about Charlie Hardin’s disappearance and that they questioned Opio Hardin about his father’s whereabouts.
A month later, when 17-year-old Ricky Burrus found Hardin’s skeletal remains next to a tree near his home, the teenager first thought it was a “fake.” Burrus said there were no classes the day he found the body and that on that afternoon, he decided to venture out into the woods with his 13-year-old cousin near their Woodyard Road homes.
The two were racing beneath the trees when Burrus said he nearly stumbled over the body, which was clothed.
After he took his grandfather to look at what they found, Pulaski County sheriff’s office deputies went to investigate the body, which was sent to the Crime Lab for identification.
Other than saying there were signs of “trauma” on Hardin’s body, Davis declined to give a cause of death, but she said that when deputies found the body, there were obvious signs of “foul play.”
Although the body was found in the county, the missing-persons report was filed in Little Rock, and Friday, Pulaski County investigators handed the homicide investigation over to Little Rock detectives.
Opio Hardin, of 32 Loblolly Drive, is in the Pulaski County jail, where he has been held for 45 days in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
With Charlie Hardin’s death, the number of 2012 homicides in Little Rock rose to 47, compared with 29 homicides at this point last year.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/20/2012