Client is a 'sacrificial lamb' in murder case, lawyer says

Darrell Dennis (left) sits with attorney Fernando Padilla inside the courtroom of Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza at the start of Dennis’ murder trial Wednesday at the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock.
Darrell Dennis (left) sits with attorney Fernando Padilla inside the courtroom of Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza at the start of Dennis’ murder trial Wednesday at the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock.

Darrell Dennis is the "sacrificial lamb" being offered up by authorities desperate to blame someone for the slaying of a Fayetteville teenager shot dead on a Little Rock street almost two years ago, Dennis' lawyer told a Pulaski County jury Wednesday.

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In opening statements on the first day of the 49-year-old defendant's capital-murder trial, defense attorney Tom Devine derided the case against his client as a patchwork of paid informants, a jailhouse snitch and the surviving victim, who was too drunk and drugged to clearly remember what happened to him. Other witnesses are testifying either because they've been paid or they hope to gain favor with prosecutors, Devine said.

With all of the media attention surrounding the May 2013 death of 18-year-old Forrest Abrams, police and prosecutors have to pin the slaying on someone, and they've picked Dennis, Devine told the eight women and four men. That kind of killing cannot go unsolved, he said.

"There's a young man dead on a city street, and no one is accountable for it?" Devine said. "Someone has to be that sacrificial lamb, and Darrell Dennis is it."

Dennis, with two unidentified accomplices, is accused of abducting Abrams and 24-year-old Tyler James Hodges of Little Rock at gunpoint from the Golden Foods convenience store at 12th and Woodrow streets, then driving them to the Arvest Bank branch on University Avenue where Dennis is said to have tried unsuccessfully to withdraw money from Hodges' bank account. Abrams was shot to death shortly after Hodges managed to escape the robbers, prosecutors said.

Dennis' arrest drew the attention of legislators when the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed he was an eight-time parole absconder on a 60-year armed robbery sentence who'd never been sent back to prison despite picking up 10 new felony drug charges since he'd been granted early release in December 2008.

The newspaper also showed that Dennis just had been released from jail in his drug cases 36 hours before Abrams was killed, which led the lawmakers to implement major reforms of the parole and probation programs.

Dennis, who now has 21 felony convictions for crimes that include aggravated and simple robberies, has since been sentenced to 60 years for those drug charges and had his parole revoked.

With Hodges expected to testify today after proceedings resume before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza at 10:30 a.m., Devine asked jurors to consider that Hodges had been using drugs and alcohol that night and was still drunk when he gave his first interview. Hodges had consumed five shots of tequila, four beers, two Xanax tablets and four hits of LSD, the lawyer said.

"Our witnesses are not choirboys," senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield told the jury in her opening remarks.

But they are telling the truth, she said. Hodges might not be able to recall every detail of his ordeal, but he does remember the face of the man who put him through it, she said.

"He remembers that man's face," said Satterfield, pointing at Dennis, who was wearing a gray suit and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar with a loosely tied navy patterned tie. "That man's face is etched into Tyler's brain like the memory of the planes crashing on 9/11."

An anonymous tip led police to look at Dennis as a suspect, one of three men they investigated, Satterfield said. But Dennis was the only one whom Hodges was able to pick out of a photographic lineup as the man responsible for his kidnapping and robbery, she told jurors.

The prosecution's witnesses have no reason to lie or try to frame Dennis, she said. They'd never met each other until after Dennis was arrested, Satterfield told the jury.

Dennis and Abrams were strangers who were brought together the night Abrams was killed because they had a mutual acquaintance, she said. Their "chance encounter" with Dennis at the convenience store happened because Dennis had pretended he would sell them pills, Satterfield said. She said testimony will show that while Dennis had help, he was the man in charge of the robbery.

"What starts perhaps as a drug transaction ends up an aggravated robbery," she said. "He does all of the talking, all of the driving and all of the directing [the accomplices]."

At the store, Dennis talked his way into Abrams' red Chevrolet Tracker then pulled a gun and forced the men to take him to the bank, stopping only to change cars and pick up Dennis' accomplices when the sport utility vehicle ran out of gas, she said.

Dennis got angry when he couldn't get money out of Hodges' account and gave the men an ultimatum to get him money or die, Satterfield told jurors. Hodges managed to coax Dennis into taking the men to his aunt's house, with the promise of collecting cash there, she said. But once at the Booker Street home, Hodges took refuge and called police, the prosecutor said.

"True to his word ... a few minutes later, Forrest is killed, shot four times in the back and left to bleed to death on West 11th Street," Satterfield said. "He didn't stand a chance."

No DNA or fingerprints link Dennis to the killing, but the defendant's phone number -- written on a yellow notepad -- was found in Abrams' SUV, according to testimony. Written above the phone number is the word "red," which three witnesses have told police is Dennis' nickname on the street.

Dennis has acknowledged in writing that the phone number belongs to his grandmother Lottie Gilmore, and that he's used it as a contact number. Court files show the number in his records back in 2009.

Metro on 05/21/2015

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