PERRYVILLE - Authorities questioned the nephew of a former drug task force agent who was shot to death Sunday in rural Perry County but have made no arrests in the killing, Perry County Sheriff Scott Montgomery said Tuesday.
Deputies found the body of Michael Z. Steele, 48, at the intersection of Baylor House Road and Arkansas 113 in the southeast corner of the county. Perry County Coroner Bill Greene pronounced Steele dead at the scene, Montgomery said in a news release Tuesday.
Steele’s nephew, Tony Tuck, was taken to the Perry County jail in Perryville on a public-intoxication charge Sunday and told authorities he had chased the people he thought fatally shot Steele, Montgomery said. Tuck admitted to ramming a vehicle with his car and firing shots at it while pursuing it on Underwood Road, according to Montgomery.
Montgomery said Tuck was charged with committing a terroristic act.
Tuck told police the altercation stemmed from a party he attended earlier that day. Tuck said he called Steele and asked that he intercept those he fought with at Baylor House Road.
“As the other party was leaving, shots were fired,” Montgomery said in the release. “[It is] still unknown who fired shots first or if they were warning shots, but it was determined that one of the shots allegedly fired from the departing vehicle hit Steele in the chest.”
Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said the county asked agents from the state police to investigate the shooting.
Steele was a drug task force agent in Lawrence County in the early 2000s. He left when the office was disbanded because of a lack of funding about five years later, Lawrence County Sheriff Jody Dotson said previously.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 02/26/2014