A 24-year-old man who set up an armed holdup that turned deadly in Little Rock's Capitol View neighborhood was sentenced to 50 years in prison Thursday for first-degree murder and aggravated robbery.
Wesley Leroy Wooley III pleaded guilty last month to aggravated robbery and first-degree murder in the death of Terry Milton Lipsmeyer, 52.
Lipsmeyer was shot to death in October by one of two armed masked men whom Wooley had recruited and transported to Lipsmeyer's Rice Street home to rob him of drugs in the middle of the night.
Wooley's first-degree murder charge was reduced from capital murder in a plea agreement to throw himself on the mercy of the court.
He said he knew he could persuade Lipsmeyer to let him in the house, something the older man would not have done for his accomplices, whom Lipsmeyer did not know.
Citing how Wooley had betrayed Lipsmeyer's trust to gain entry for the killer, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza deemed the higher sentence more appropriate.
Wooley was on probation for drug convictions in Lonoke and Pulaski counties when Lipsmeyer was killed. Three days after the shooting, the defendant was convicted of misdemeanor drug possession in North Little Rock.
The judge also described drug abuse as a scourge on the community that has grown worse since he was a prosecutor in the late 1970s. Piazza said at least 80 percent of the criminal defendants in his court are there for crimes related to substance abuse.
He said he initially had decided on a 50-year term for the defendant, and nothing he heard about Wooley's character or difficult childhood during the 44-minute sentencing hearing had convinced him a lower sentence was merited. Wooley will have to serve at least 35 years before he can qualify for parole.
Wooley identified his accomplices to police when he was arrested two days later, and he named the two 27-year-old North Little Rock men again in court Thursday.
Timothy Pemberton and Matthew Allen York also were arrested in the case, but formal charges were not filed because of a lack of evidence beyond Wooley's statement, the defendant's attorney, Bret Qualls, told the judge.
Although Lipsmeyer's roommate, 25-year-old Byron Price, witnessed the killing, he could not identify the masked men, although he told investigators he thought one of them was Wooley.
Testifying Thursday, Wooley denied having a gun but admitted to letting the men into the home after arranging to purchase methamphetamine from Lipsmeyer. He said he asked to use Lipsmeyer's bathroom and took that opportunity to let the others in. He did not go with them, Wooley said.
"They were supposed to rob him," he told the judge, saying the three were "desperate" for drugs. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that. I'm sorry. I didn't plan for him to die. I didn't plan for him to get shot."
The judge also heard testimony that Wooley's parents had been drug abusers when he was a child and that he had been forced into foster care and living with relatives. His mother abandoned the family for several years, the judge was told.
Undisclosed to Piazza was both Wooley and his father, 57-year-old Wesley Wooley Jr., had been accused of conspiring with three other people -- one of them a Pulaski County sheriff's office jail deputy -- to smuggle contraband, tobacco, marijuana, cash and candy into the jail in April.
Charges against the younger Wooley were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea to the murder and robbery charges. His father and former Deputy Kyler Guyer are scheduled to stand trial in December.
Senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield said Lipsmeyer should not be judged by how he died but rather by the loss to his family and the community.
Lipsmeyer was one of seven children born to Perry County farmers. He was an Arkansas Department of Health chemist who loved his only daughter so much that when she proved allergic to cow milk, he bought and milked goats for her, Satterfield told the judge.
"We don't know who shot him, but it doesn't matter. None of this would've happen if not for [the defendant]," she said. "He's stolen all of Terry's past and all of the future moments with this big, loving family."
Qualls, the defense attorney, also told the judge that Lipsmeyer did not deserve what happened to him. But he urged Piazza to also consider how Wooley was neglected as a child. He's never been convicted of violence aside from his drug addiction, and all of the evidence shows Wooley is hardworking and friendly, the attorney said.
"Terry Lipsmeyer did not deserve ... the death penalty for selling meth," Qualls said. "But along the same lines ... Wooley didn't deserve to be born to parents ... selling and using meth."