Helena-West Helena police have arrested two men and were seeking two others Wednesday who police say were involved in gunning down a local hamburger-stand owner during a botched winter robbery.
Joseph D. Henry, 20, and Antonio Walker, 23, were arrested Tuesday on charges of capital murder in the slaying of 40-year-old Michael Washington, the owner of Burger World and More, who was found fatally wounded Jan. 5inside the business.
Helena-West Helena Police Chief Uless Wallace, who confirmed the arrests in an interview Wednesday, said Henry, who is known as “Pocket Joe,” confessed to the killing after taking a polygraph test Tuesday.
“We have a taped confession and everything of the actual shooter,” Wallace said.
The arrest comes nearly three months after police were called about 6 p.m. to Burger World and More, at Missouri and Columbia streets in the former Helena part of town.
Customers expecting to pick up their food orders instead found Washington lying inside the restaurant suffering from gunshot “wounds,” according to a police report.
When officers arrived, they found Washington on the floor and unresponsive. A handgun was lying beside him, according to the report. Washington was taken by ambulance to Helena Regional Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
On Friday, investigators got a break in the case, Wallace said, when a woman stepped forward with information about the shooting. On the basis of her information, investigators arrested Henry on Tuesday morning.
He confessed later that day, Wallace said.
Wallace said Henry told investigators that three other men got together and decided to go rob “Big Mike,” a nickname that Washington was known by in the community. Henry said he was pulled into the plan and was picked as the gunman, he told Wallace.
“When [they] showed up at the Burger World, he pulled out a gun and he said Mike brandished a gun and then the shooting started,” Wallace said. “At that time, nobody had actually enough time to go into his pockets and get any money because after the shooting started, they all ran out of Burger World in three different directions.”
On the basis of Henry’s statement, police believe he fired the shots that killed Washington, Wallace said. Henry also implicated Walker and another two men whom police are seeking, the chief said. He declined to release the names of the two other suspects.
Henry and Walker, who were being held Wednesday in the Phillips County jail, are awaiting the filing of formal charges by 1st Judicial District prosecutors.
Wallace said he anticipates that Henry and Walker will each face criminal enhancements because investigators believe that the robbery was connected to a local street gang. The men may also face additional gun-possession charges, Wallace said.
Court and prison records show that Henry and Walker are both felons.
Beginning in July 2009, Walker served about a year of a two-year prison sentence for a second-degree battery conviction in Chicot County, according to Arkansas Department of Correction records. He was released in June 2010.
According to Phillips County Circuit Court records, Henry pleaded guilty Feb. 5 to residential burglary and admitted that he was involved in breaking into a Helena-West Helena woman’s home last May. A laptop and television were taken in the burglary, according to reports.
The same day as his plea, Henry was sentenced to a total of five years of probation, two years of which he was required to serve under the supervision of a probation officer.
The sentence was imposed exactly a month after Washington’s slaying.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/04/2013