A 20-year-old North Little Rock man accepted a 35-year prison sentence on Monday for killing a 15-year-old boy whose body was found in a Pulaski County field.
Timothy Owen "Lil Tim" Harper pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, in exchange for the prison sentence that will require him to serve 24½ years before he can qualify for parole.
Deputy prosecutor Sean Strode told Circuit Judge Leon Johnson on Monday that Harper had lured Austin Taylor Addie into a wooded area and killed him on April 7, 2013. Police said Addie had told his grandmother that day that he was going to visit a friend at a Live Oak Drive home, which was Harper's residence.
Addie's grandmother reported him missing the next day. Four days later, the boy's body was found in a Campbell Road field by a man riding a four-wheeler. Police said Addie had been shot five times.
Harper, represented by attorney Lott Rolfe, apologized to the boy's family and grandmother after pleading guilty.
Police said investigators had statements from five people saying that Harper had talked about killing the teenager. Harper told authorities the teen had been at his home but that he had told the boy they couldn't associate anymore because Harper's mother was concerned about the difference in their ages. Addie turned 15 a month before he was killed.
One witness told police that Harper described persuading the boy to go into the woods, where he smoked marijuana with the victim, then shot him, using the pretext that he was going to show Addie a stolen "scooter" that they could ride, police said.
Police also said an inmate who had shared a jail cell with Harper after his arrest contacted detectives and reported that Harper had told him he had shot a boy five times after getting the victim to go with him into the woods to see a motorcycle.
Another witness told police that Addie had been "talking," trying to get Harper sent to prison, while yet another said the boy had told her that Harper was going to shoot him in the head because he had told people they were breaking into houses together, police said.
Metro on 07/23/2014