NEWPORT -- A Delaware man arrested in the 1967 slaying of a North Little Rock man will return to Newport next week and will soon face a first-degree murder charge, Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas said Friday.
Authorities obtained a governor's warrant to release James Leon Clay, 67, of Georgetown, Del., to Arkansas on Thursday, Lucas said.
Clay was arrested at his home March 10 in the fatal shooting of James Ricks, 27, in June 1967.
Third Judicial Circuit Prosecuting Attorney Henry Boyce said Clay was arrested after he was recorded telling a former prison cellmate that he killed Ricks.
According to police, Clay and his brother, Leon Junior Clay, robbed a Little Rock pawnshop, and the two were on foot. They found Ricks sleeping in his car near railroad tracks, and James Clay shot him through the car window, Lucas wrote in an arrest affidavit filed in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Leon Junior Clay has since died, Lucas said.
The shot did not kill Ricks, but James Clay later fatally shot Ricks in the back of the head after Clay drove to Newport, Lucas said.
Clay had been serving a three-year sentence in the Sussex County Correctional Institution in Georgetown, Del., for attempted bank robbery. He was released in August and had been on supervised probation since his release.
Court officials had scheduled an extradition hearing in Sussex County Superior Court in Georgetown on Friday but then moved that hearing to Thursday. Clay attended the hearing, but his court-appointed public defender and other attorneys were not advised of the schedule change and did not attend.
Lucas said Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson requested the warrant, and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell issued it Thursday.
The sheriff said a transport service will bring Clay back to Jackson County late next week, where he will be held in the county jail in Newport to await an arraignment.
Lucas said he does not know when Clay's arraignment will be held.
State Desk on 04/11/2015