Little Rock police said they were led to a homicide suspect by an anonymous letter -- the details of which were confirmed by relatives of the suspect after they were arrested this week in a separate slaying in Hot Springs.
In a case that lasted more than a year and took detectives across the country in search of answers, police arrested Aaron Robinson, 23, on Thursday in the 2013 shooting death of Darrell Henson. Robinson was charged with first-degree murder.
Deputies from Pulaski and Saline counties found Henson, 42, dead in the 15000 block of Baseline Road in the early morning hours of April 15, 2013. Investigators determined that he had been killed in Little Rock the previous night.
Three relatives of Robinson witnessed the slaying and initially provided false statements to police, according to a court affidavit filed Thursday by detective Tommy Hudson. It wasn't until police received a letter from "A Concerned Neighbor" four months later that the circumstances of Henson's death became clearer.
According to the affidavit, the letter states that Henson's ex-girlfriend, Catrice Counts, had been in a fight with him outside her home. The confrontation involved Counts' two children, Alexis Henson and Joe Dickerson. Darrell Henson was the father of Alexis Henson.
Robinson, who is Counts' nephew, and another relative, Dazmein Counts, were also purportedly involved in the fight.
The letter says that Darrell Henson had a knife, Dickerson had an axe, and Robinson had a gun. Henson dropped his knife, began running away and was purportedly shot by Robinson.
"The letter states that when [Henson] fell to the ground, Mr. Robinson fired several more shots at the victim's head and Dazmein Counts kicked the victim in the face," according to the affidavit.
Police said that Counts and her children initially provided no such account of the killing.
Catrice Counts told police that she and Henson fought in the driveway and threw things at each other but that he walked away from the altercation.
Dickerson, 18, and Alexis Henson, 21, said they didn't see even him the night he was killed, according to police. They said they only drove to their mother's house and picked her up after learning that she had been fighting with Henson.
Dazmein Counts "denied being present" when Henson was killed, the affidavit says. He was "very uncooperative" with Little Rock detectives after they found him at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles and questioned him.
The investigation continued into 2014. Little Rock police again sought to interview the family and learned they had moved to Hot Springs.
That's where Counts and her children were arrested this week, accused of misleading police in another homicide case.
Hot Springs police arrested Dickerson on Monday. They said in a news release that he had "direct knowledge" of the shooting death of 19-year-old James Hawk Holmes in that city earlier this month. Dickerson was initially charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution. He was later charged with aggravated robbery and attempt to commit capital murder.
Counts and Henson were arrested Wednesday. They were also charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution. Counts faces additional charges of theft by receiving and possession of a firearm by certain persons.
The three were being held at the Garland County jail.
An investigation into the death of Holmes is ongoing, but the family's arrest brought Darrell Henson's homicide case closer to its conclusion, Little Rock police said.
When Little Rock police traveled to Hot Springs on Thursday to question Counts and her children, they each provided new statements on the killing that were consistent with the anonymous letter.
"[Alexis] Henson stated that she saw Mr. Robinson shoot her father to death," Hudson wrote in the affidavit.
Robinson was being held in the Pulaski County jail on $150,000 bail late Friday.
Metro on 11/22/2014