CONWAY -- Police in Texas were holding three Arkansas teenagers Friday for questioning about the shooting deaths of a Conway couple -- a case that already has led to the arrest of a boy the couple was raising.
The development came to light after the Graham (Texas) Police Department issued a news release about the youths, whom it described as "runaways" and "persons of interest" in the shooting deaths of Robert and Patricia Cogdell, both 66.
Justin Staton, 14, has been jailed since Wednesday, shortly after the Cogdells' bodies were found outside their home on Conway's west side. Police believe that the shootings occurred Tuesday night.
For years, Justin Staton had thought the Cogdells were his paternal grandparents.
On Friday, a judge in Conway found probable cause for Justin Staton to be held without bail. He has not been charged formally in the deaths.
Authorities are limited on what they can say in Arkansas about cases involving juveniles unless they are charged as adults. But after learning about the news release, Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said late Friday that the two boys and girl being held in Texas are all 17 and from Arkansas.
Unlike Arkansas, where the cutoff age to be considered an adult is 18, Texas considers 17-year-olds as adults in criminal matters, Hiland said. In Arkansas, teenagers between 14 and 17 can be charged as juveniles or adults at a prosecuting attorney's discretion.
The Graham Leader newspaper in Texas identified the three being held on misdemeanor charges relating to items that police found in their vehicle as Hunter John Drexler, Conner Hunter Atchley and Anastasia Rose Roberts. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette confirmed the names are accurate.
The three are not believed to be related to the Cogdells.
In a brief statement late Friday, Conway Police Department spokesman LaTresha Woodruff said the three teenagers' names came up during the course of the investigation.
"The three were picked up in Texas and held as runaways," she said. "They will be questioned extensively once they are back in Arkansas."
Hiland said one or more investigators have traveled to Texas to question the three.
In Texas, Graham police said officers stopped a silver Tahoe carrying the teens after 1:30 a.m. Thursday as it entered Graham on Texas 16 and pulled into a business parking lot, according to the news release.
Two of the teens had suffered gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, one of which was in the chest, police said.
As the three were getting out of the car, one dropped what police described as a double-edged knife. A search of the car also turned up a second knife, drug paraphernalia and a small amount of what officers believe was marijuana, police said. Those findings are what led to the misdemeanor charges, the Graham newspaper reported.
The release said police were on the lookout for the car after the law enforcement dispatch in Young County, Texas, advised the car was headed to Graham and that the "vehicle had been reportedly involved in a kidnapping out of Arkansas."
Earlier Friday in Conway, Justin Staton said nothing audible during his first court appearance by video camera from the Faulkner County jail.
Meanwhile, his maternal grandfather, Randy Staton, stood anxiously near the front of the courtroom. No relatives of the slain couple, the Cogdells, appeared to be present.
"This is such a catastrophe," Randy Staton said before the hearing. "I don't believe he did it."
District Judge David Reynolds advised Justin that he was being held on two counts of capital murder. Reynolds set the teenager's plea and arraignment for July 31.
A public defender will be appointed to represent Justin.
Reynolds also ordered an affidavit in the case to be sealed until the prosecutor's office files formal charges.
Hiland said after the hearing that he has not filed formal charges against Justin. Hiland said the law allows a defendant to be held up to 60 days before those are filed.
Deputy prosecutor Hugh Finkelstein said Justin's case is being handled as an adult's would. But the judge never called out Justin Staton's name, as he did for the many other defendants also having their first court appearances.
Moments before the hearing, Justin's mother, Michelle Staton, also appeared before the judge by video camera on failure-to-appear-in-court and body-attachment charges from 2014. Reynolds set bail for her at $3,245.
While her remarks weren't clear, she at one point seemed say she needed to get out of jail and referred to her son. A public defender interrupted her and said, "Ms. Staton, you need to quit talking. I'm the public defender. Stop talking, OK."
Police found the Cogdells' bodies Wednesday afternoon beside a wooded area behind a shed on their property. Justin lived at the couple's brick home.
Police believe that Robert Cogdell was shot inside the home, Patricia Cogdell was shot in the garage, and both bodies were dumped by the woods.
The Cogdells' son, Robert Shane Cogdell, also lives at the home. Authorities have not said where he was when the shootings took place.
The victims had been Justin's legal guardians since 2010.
Since 2012, the family had made many calls seeking police assistance for a variety of problems, including a juvenile's suicide threat, a juvenile's problems with drugs and animal-welfare concerns.
Police redacted the names of juveniles from the reports, which were obtained under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
When police visited the home May 17 to respond to the report of a suicide threat, a juvenile told a responding officer that he had cut his wrist the night before, was currently on probation and was attending drug court.
The juvenile also said, "he wanted to get out of the house, and did not want to live there," the police report said.
"Robert [Shane Cogdell] and Pat also confirmed aggressiveness and threats," the report said. "They advised me they feared for his well being as he may have been on drugs."
Police took the minor into custody.
The most recent call from the Cogdells' house involved a domestic disturbance Thursday, the day after the bodies were discovered. The dispute involved a daughter of the Cogdells, Lindi Weaver, and Robert Shane Cogdell, who the report said "both wanted some of their" parents' belongings.
The reporting officer said he went to the house because "a male was reportedly throwing and breaking things." When he got there, he wrote, "The parties were in a verbal altercation, [but] there were no evidence in the house to prove that anything had been broken."
The officer talked to both people, who calmed down, agreed on a couple of items and separated, the report said.
Robert Shane Cogdell said Friday that he didn't have time to talk with a reporter.
A 2010 petition in a Conway County guardianship case said Justin Staton would have been in danger had he been placed in the home of his mother, who also currently faces drug and alcohol charges.
The petition also said Justin believed that Robert Shane Cogdell was his father despite a 2008 DNA test that indicated otherwise. It also said the child would have been traumatized had he been separated from the Cogdells, whom he had "always known and loved."
Earlier this year, Randy Staton asked a court to make him the "substitute guardian" now that, he said, the boy was a teenager and wanted to live with his biological family. That case remains pending.
State Desk on 07/25/2015