Deshaun Scott, who said his wife's fatal shooting was an accident and not first-degree murder, was found guilty Friday of a lesser charge of second-degree murder.
The nine women and three men of the Pulaski County jury deliberated about 51/2 hours on the fourth day of trial to reject prosecution accusations that the November 2012 slaying of Lacrisa Renee Foot was a deliberate act of first-degree murder.
Their verdict is a finding that they believe that the 34-year-old Little Rock man killed his wife of two years while engaging in behavior he knew could be deadly.
Scott said he was holding a gun, to keep it away from Foot while they argued inside a car, when she hit his hand and caused the weapon to fire. Prosecutors Emily Abbott and Alex Betton said blood spray across the outside of the vehicle proved Foot had not been shot inside it.
The reduced charge carries a 75-year maximum for habitual offenders who commit crimes with a gun, with jurors recommending Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen impose a 60-year sentence after deliberating about two hours.
Scott, who was on parole when Foot was killed, will have to serve 15 years before he can qualify for parole. That same sentence for first-degree murder would have required 42 years of imprisonment before reaching parole eligibility.
Until armed guards took him away to prison, Scott maintained that Foot, his third wife, was the love of his life and that he never intended to harm her. He swore he'd never abused her, despite the tumultuous nature of their relationship, telling jurors that she had made him a better man.
"I'm sorry," Scott told Foot's family before being escorted out of court. "I promise I never tried to hurt her."
Foot's body was found in the middle of the night by a passing motorist. She was facedown in an extensive puddle of blood at Katherine and 39th streets, with evidence showing the body could have been there as long as an hour.
Scott admitted to what he called "bad choices" after her killing, telling jurors he acted in a panic.
Scott said he pushed her body out of the vehicle after the shooting. He threw the gun in the river, tried to clean the car and wash himself with bleach to get rid of the blood, initially lied to police about the shooting, and didn't tell Foot's family what had happened.
Instead, he made a boisterous and deliberate show of grief at her mother's home, acting as if he didn't know she had been killed.
Taking the stand, he disclosed a 15-year criminal history with eight felony convictions, among them drug dealing, firearm possession and domestic violence. Not all of his run-ins with the law were disclosed, however.
Scott has been accused of killing someone and throwing them in the street before. In March 2002, Little Rock police arrested Scott, then 21, on suspicion of capital murder and aggravated robbery in the shooting death that month of Richard Johnson, 34, of North Little Rock. Formal charges were never filed.
At sentencing Friday, Foot's mother and her oldest son lashed out at Scott for the way he had disparaged Foot to police while trying to cover up the killing. He had told investigators she was a promiscuous prostitute and drug user.
Her family said Foot was a beautiful, caring woman who loved her family and friends. A Facebook memorial to her, dedicated to speaking out about domestic violence, has collected more than 5,000 likes, they said.
They testified that Scott had abused Foot both physically and emotionally during their relationship, although they said they had no questions that Foot had loved Scott.
Foot's mother, Carol Patterson, told jurors that Scott had harmed not only her daughter but also the woman's five children. Foot's 4-year-old daughter doesn't quite understand what happened to her mother, Patterson said.
She recalled seeing the little girl crying while watching a TV show about mothers.
"She thought she was being punished," Patterson said. "She said, 'Nana, will you please call my mother and tell her I will be her best friend. Tell her I won't be mean anymore.' What do I tell her?"
Her 19-year-old son, Alexander Foot, called her his "best friend, somebody I could talk to." He recalled her "nasty" cooking that brought complaints from her children, with a laugh that ended in a sigh.
"I wish today I could eat it and make her happy," Foot said.
Testifying on Scott's behalf, his brother, Dewayne Page, 32, told jurors his older brother had a "rough upbringing" in "the hood" as the child of an absentee father and a mother who had been addicted to drugs. He sold drugs to survive on the streets, Page said.
But Scott is also a "wonderful" and "softhearted" person who raised money to buy school supplies for neighborhood children, Page said, saying he was lucky to have relatives who rescued him from that life.
"There is not one ounce of me that would believe my brother would hurt anybody intentionally ... definitely not his wife," Page said.
The men's mother, Mary Page, asked for mercy for her oldest surviving son, telling jurors Scott had to do without food and clothing sometimes because of her drug addiction. He took it on himself to look out for his oldest brother's three children when Derrick Deshad Scott died in 2002, she said.
He fiercely loved the daughter he had with Foot and considered another of Foot's daughters as his own, Page told jurors.
"He's hustled and he's taken care of those children," Page told defense attorney Bill James, who was assisted at trial by lawyer Nick Lyons.
Metro on 07/19/2014