Ex-caretaker held in Arkansas death

Disabled man’s body found in woods

FORT SMITH -- An Oklahoma man was arrested Wednesday on a warrant charging him with second-degree murder in the death of a mentally disabled man in his care in Arkansas, after authorities said he concocted an elaborate plot to deceive the police.

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Shawn Edward Howard, 44, was arrested on the warrant and was held without bail Wednesday after he refused to answer questions about how the nude body of Jimmy Don Abner, 57, ended up in some woods outside Cedarville in Crawford County in February, according to Fort Smith police reports filed with the Sebastian County prosecutor.

Police spokesman Sgt. Daniel Grubbs said that after an intense investigation into Howard's story about Abner's disappearance, detectives concluded that Howard's account was unbelievable.

The warrant was issued, he said, after police received the results of an autopsy conducted by the state medical examiner's office in Little Rock. Grubbs said the medical examiner concluded in the autopsy report, dated Friday, that Abner died of severe dehydration and "enormous bed sores."

The report also showed mental retardation as a contributing factor and that the manner of death was homicide.

"When we found him, it was quite obvious he wasn't taken care of," Grubbs told reporters Wednesday.

Grubbs said Howard, Abner's live-in caretaker who worked for the Bost Human Development Center, reported Abner missing about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 10. He told the responding officer that he was taking a shower about 2:30 that afternoon when Abner told him he was leaving with a man named Eugene.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Howard said he ran to the door and saw Abner getting into a white pickup with a paper license tag and occupied by two black men -- one of them Eugene -- that then drove away. The affidavit said police were never able to find anyone fitting Eugene's description who owned a white pickup.

Also, another Bost employee confirmed that Abner had only one pair of shoes, which police found in Abner's closet.

On Feb. 12, a man and his grandson were walking in the woods outside Cedarville near the Oklahoma border and found Abner's body, naked except for a pair of socks, Grubbs said.

The affidavit said that when Abner's body was found, it weighed 92 pounds and was covered with bedsores. Howard had told police, according to the affidavit, that Abner was in good health when he left the house and weighed 134 pounds.

Investigators interviewed an acquaintance of Howard's, Cecilia Elizabeth Howard, who told police that Howard said he would pay her $4,200 if she would tell police she saw Abner leaving with Eugene, the affidavit said. At first, she gave that story to police but then admitted that Howard had offered to pay her to lie, the affidavit said.

At one point, the police received a handwritten note purportedly from Eugene that said he and Abner went to Joplin, Mo., to be "'gay married' and 'if you don't stop looking for him I'll kill myself and him.'"

The affidavit said the note was mailed from Oklahoma. Howard moved to Pocola, Okla., after Abner's disappearance. Also, Howard's handwriting appeared to be identical to the handwriting in the note when compared with his handwritten statement to police and work papers, the affidavit said.

Although Abner was supposed to be under constant care, the affidavit said, police discovered from records of a casino in Oklahoma that Howard was at the casino for several hours almost every day in January.

Howard told police, according to the affidavit, that at the times when he was gone, Cecilia Howard would watch Abner. She denied it, the affidavit said.

Metro on 04/09/2015

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