Little Rock District Judge Alice Lightle set bail at $1 million Thursday for a man accused of holding a woman against her will, beating her with a baseball bat and sexually assaulting her for more than a week earlier this month.
Terrance Devon Cromwell, a 41-year-old former funeral home employee also known by authorities as "Body Snatcher," faces charges of rape, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, first-degree domestic battery and second-degree terroristic threatening. Police arrested him Feb. 13 after a 39-year-old woman showed up at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary with six broken ribs, a collapsed lung and bruises across her body.
The woman told detectives her injuries came at the hands of Cromwell, whom she had been dating for about two weeks, according to a court affidavit.
Before his arrest, Cromwell had been free on bond in two separate criminal cases.
He was charged in November with sexual indecency with a child, a case in which another man, Akym Lamaar Avery, 39, faces a charge of second-degree sexual assault.
Cromwell was arrested in March 2013 on three charges of aggravated assault after his 64-year-old mother was pistol-whipped during an argument at her Little Rock home.
In Cromwell's latest arrest, he's accused of holding a woman at his home at 9223 Meadow Lane from Feb. 1-9. The woman told investigators that she and Cromwell smoked methamphetamine and had consensual sex the first day, but he threatened to kill her if she left and began beating her, according to the affidavit.
The beatings continued over the next week, with Cromwell purportedly striking the woman with a baseball bat on at least one occasion and choking her on others. When the woman complained of pain in her ribs during sex, the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Cromwell told her to stop crying and "quit being a wimp" or he would beat her again, the affidavit states.
The woman told police she continued to smoke meth with Cromwell to "escape the situation."
Cromwell also forced the woman to attend a court appearance Feb. 9, according to the affidavit. Court records show that Cromwell was in Circuit Judge Leon Johnson's courtroom that day to face multiple charges of failure to appear.
His mother, Jeannie Cromwell, drove the two to court. She dropped the woman off at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary afterward, later telling police the woman had asked for help and to be taken to a doctor.
Police interviewed the woman and arrested Cromwell four days later.
Cromwell has a criminal record spanning more than 12 years.
He was found guilty of domestic battery in 2010, 2007 and 2003, the earliest conviction including one count of aggravated assault. He was also convicted of drug-related offenses in 2007.
His first two convictions led to five-year prison sentences that were shortened by parole.
For his third, Cromwell received credit for time served in jail, and former Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey sentenced him to six years of probation and anger management classes.
Accusations of domestic abuse against Cromwell go back even further. Court records show the first of several petitions for order of protection against him was filed in 1998.
Police said Cromwell's ex-girlfriend shot him in 2005. He was seen running from his home in his underwear, bleeding from a gunshot wound that was not life-threatening, according to reports.
Officers responded to the scene after a motorist swerved to avoid Cromwell, crashed into a ditch, then called 911.
The ex-girlfriend was charged with first-degree battery.
Cromwell was being held in the Pulaski County jail late Thursday.
Metro on 02/20/2015