Prosecutors have dropped a murder charge against a convicted killer, saying they need to protect a witness' safety and that they're confident the defendant, Erick Dewayne Harrell, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Harrell, 37, was convicted of first-degree murder and illegal gun possession in March 2013 for killing a friend, 30-year-old Ishmail Haqq, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette distribution employee and father of two, in April 2010.
Sentenced to 65 years in prison, Harrell won't be eligible for parole until August 2052, when he's 75. The Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld his conviction in May.
Barely three months after his murder conviction, Harrell, whom police said was known as a drug dealer, was charged with first-degree murder in the June 2002 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Jerrick Jerrell Davis of Little Rock.
Davis was found dead, shot 10 times by two guns, in the living room of a home at 2900 S. Louisiana St. by police responding to an anonymous pre-dawn tip.
The initial investigation did not lead to an arrest. But in June 2010, about a month before Harrell was arrested in Haqq's slaying, police interviewed Deshawn Debussy Leverett, 32, who said he had taken Davis to the Louisiana Street home the day he was killed.
At that residence -- which Leverett said was the home of his uncle -- Davis, armed with a .22-caliber pistol, and a man Leverett knew by the nickname "Twin," later identified as Harrell, had gotten into an argument over who was the better dope dealer and who had better-quality drugs, court files show. Erick Harrell has a twin brother, Derrick.
Leverett, who had also lived at the house, said Davis pulled out his gun, then put it back in his pants without pointing it at anyone, but Twin pulled out his own gun and shot Davis, who had turned his back, reports state. Leverett said he ran but saw Twin carrying both his own and Davis' guns from the house.
Leverett later recanted his claim that he had seen Twin shoot Davis.
In another police interview, 54-year-old Danny Crook said he was sitting on the front porch when he heard Twin and Davis argue about which gang was the toughest, with Davis as a member of the Crips and Twin belonging to the Bloods.
He told police that Davis had been flashing his pistol at Twin during the argument, which ended with Twin shooting Davis from the front door of the residence, according to court filings.
Harrell was charged in Davis' killing about seven months after the Crook interview, court filings show. He had been scheduled for trial last month, but the proceedings were delayed because of inclement weather.
On Wednesday, deputy prosecutor John Hout said Crook's life was threatened the day before the trial by parties unknown, so the decision was made to drop the case rather than risk Crook's safety, given that Harrell already will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
"We felt the potential risk to Mr. Crook was not worth it," Hout said.
Prosecutors withdrew the charges during a Tuesday court appearance before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza.
At Harrell's 2013 murder trial, Leverett's name surfaced in police testimony as someone who linked Harrell to Haqq's killing.
Leverett told police that a man he knew, Dion Bowman, told him that Harrell had described shooting Haqq in the head at 28th and Rock streets. Neither Bowman nor Leverett was called as a witness in the trial.
Haqq was found dead from a gunshot to the head behind the wheel of his crashed car at Rock and 28th streets. Harrell was linked to the killing by a cellphone found near the car that had his DNA on it.
At the trial, Haqq's wife testified that she last saw her husband about an hour before he was killed. She said Haqq told her he was going to "kick it" with friends named "Twin" and "Lil Hustler."
She said she'd never met or seen Harrell before, but her husband had talked about knowing him through his twin brother.
Harrell denied killing Haqq but told police and testified at his trial that he and Haqq had drank liquor together at Harrell's home near 28th and Gaines streets on the day of the slaying.
Harrell testified that Haqq was a CIA informant and that the federal spy agency had implanted cameras in Harrell's head through Little Rock detective Christian Sterka, the police force's liaison with the U.S. Marshals Service.
His lawyers argued at trial that Harrell was insane, but state doctors who examined him three times said he was faking the symptoms of mental illness.
Court records show Harrell had been sent to prison three times before his murder conviction, including on charges of residential burglary, second-degree battery and possession of a firearm by a felon.
He received a five-year sentence in 1998 for charges stemming from two arrests. One arrest was in September 1997, when he was caught driving a car that had been reported stolen from Dexter Brown in a carjacking. The second arrest was for shooting another man, Billy Brown, in April 1998, court files state. The records do not show whether the Browns are related.
Metro on 03/12/2015