As Pulaski County authorities transitioned Wednesday to the next phase in their investigation into the kidnapping and slaying of North Little Rock real estate agent Beverly Carter, details about the suspect's history continued to unfold.
Little Rock police arrested Arron Lewis, 33, Monday morning in west Little Rock after people spotted him near Rainwood Road and Green Mountain Drive. He is charged with kidnapping, capital murder, robbery and several counts of possession of a firearm by certain persons, in addition to parole violations.
Carter, 50, was reported missing on the evening of Sept. 25, several hours after she said she was going to meet a potential client at 14202 Old River Drive in Scott, a rural community of about 70 people. An extensive search for her began the next day, and by sunset Monday, searchers had covered about 14 square miles of the rural area.
Her body was found early Tuesday in a shallow grave on the property of a Cabot cement company, where Lewis had been employed earlier this year, according to authorities.
Investigators said Tuesday that they believe Lewis contacted Carter, posed as a potential client and lured her to the Old River Drive address.
Lewis has a criminal record that stretches back 11 years in six states, and includes a pattern of breaking the conditions of his parole -- doing so three times between 2004 and 2008, according to police and court records.
In May of 2008, after 18 months in custody in Missouri on charges of aggravated flight from a law enforcement officer, Lewis was placed on supervised release to the Kansas City Community Center. Shortly thereafter, court records show, he was expelled over altercations with staff members.
In October of that year, Lewis was enrolled in the Cornell-Grossman Rehabilitation Center in Leavenworth, Kan., where he was going through a residential re-entry program, a stipulation of his release. In November, he signed out of the facility and never returned, according to records.
He was arrested less than a month later on accusations of removing a theft-detection device from an iPod at a Nebraska Furniture Mart store in Kansas City, Kan., according to police records. After complaining of having a dislocated shoulder, Lewis was taken to Kansas University Medical Center, where he escaped police custody, a police report says.
The next day, after learning that Lewis had left the rehabilitation center, the Western District Court of Missouri issued a warrant for his arrest. Lewis was arrested on the warrant in Perry, Okla., on Nov. 24, 2008.
In February of 2011, he was arrested in a theft in Northwest Arkansas, records there show.
On Nov. 21, 2011, Lewis was sentenced to six years in prison for theft of property and theft by receiving, but he was paroled in August 2013. No additional brushes with the law were found in court and police records until his arrest Monday.
Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay said late Wednesday that members of his department's criminal investigation division were still following up on leads in the case, although nothing had altered investigators' assertion that Lewis was solely responsible for Carter's kidnapping and death.
"There's nothing new in the case we can discuss," Holladay said. "They're just tying up some loose ends, that kind of thing."
Conway attorney Jim Hensley is representing Lewis. He was hired Tuesday, several hours after the Pulaski County public defender's office entered a plea of innocent on Lewis' behalf.
Hensley declined to comment regarding a possible defense strategy in Lewis' case, saying he wanted to avoid compromising the trial process by speaking to the media.
"What we try to do on these things is slow things down a little," Hensley said. "I think everything that needs to be said has been said. I think it's better I not talk to anyone right now and muddy the waters."
Pulaski County senior deputy prosecutor Melanie Martin filed a motion Tuesday to seal court files related to the case. The motion was granted by Pulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber.
Martin did not return phone calls Wednesday, but deputy prosecutor John Johnson said his office requested that the files be sealed to "protect the investigation," which is ongoing.
"Just because someone gets arrested doesn't mean that there's not different parts of the investigation that continue, and that doesn't mean that witnesses have all been identified and talked to," he said.
Johnson said that because of publicity surrounding the case, prosecutors also wanted to protect the integrity of witnesses and jurors.
"We need to be sure witnesses are giving information based on their own knowledge. ... Long-term is more protecting your jury pool. Ultimately, if we're going to have a jury pool, we always want to minimize the amount of information that the public has so that the defendant gets a fair trial," he said.
Johnson said sealing court files is "not uncommon." More information will likely become available as "the case moves forward and there's different hearings that are held in primary court," he said.
Holladay said Lewis is in isolation, segregated from other prisoners in the Pulaski County jail. He said Lewis is alone in the cell 23 hours out of every 24.
"He's under strict supervision and close watch so that he doesn't hurt himself or cause any problems."
As for visitors, Holladay said Lewis may have been visited by his attorney Wednesday.
When Little Rock police arrested Lewis on Monday, a dump truck belonging to Argos Southern Star Concrete Co., a multinational concrete and cement manufacturer and distributor with 10 locations throughout Arkansas, was found in the vicinity.
Investigators said Tuesday that the truck was a "contributing factor" in finding Carter's body in a shallow grave behind Argos Southern Star Concrete at 12117 Arkansas 5 in Cabot early Tuesday.
Mark Prybylski, legal counsel for Argos USA in Houston, Texas, said Lewis was hired as a driver for the company in mid-July but was terminated in mid- to late August. Prybylski did not say why Lewis was terminated.
As a truck driver for the company, Prybylski said, Lewis would likely have traveled to and from any number of the company's nine ready-mix plants and single cement terminal. Argos' corporate website lists Southern Star as a ready-mix plant.
The Carter family declined to respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Jane Carfagno Hall, a real estate agent at the same Crye-Leike agency in North Little Rock where Carter was employed, may have been among the last to communicate with Carter before her death.
At about the time Carter is believed to have arrived at the property on Old River Drive in Scott, Hall had locked her keys inside a house that she was showing elsewhere, she said. She sent text messages to Carter's phone, hoping Carter would know of a way for Hall to enter the house and retrieve her keys.
Between 7 p.m. and 7:40 p.m., Hall reported exchanging several text messages with someone she believed was Carter, but she now wonders if she was instead communicating with Carter's captor.
"When it first happened, I thought it was Beverly," Hall said. "But she texted me that she was in Lonoke. And she never made it to Lonoke.
"I honestly don't know if it was her or not. That's what bothers me," she said.
Information for this article was contributed by Scott Carroll of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 10/02/2014