FORT SMITH -- A rural Greenwood man pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges that he killed a Sebastian County sheriff's deputy and wounded the Hackett police chief.
Billy Monroe Jones, 34, entered pleas before Sebastian County Circuit Judge J. Michael Fitzhugh on charges filed Monday of one count of capital murder, 10 counts of attempted capital murder, one count of injuring an animal used in law enforcement and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Jones is accused of fatally shooting sheriff's Deputy Bill Cooper in the neck Aug. 10. Cooper, 66, was one of several deputies and police officers who responded to a disturbance call at Jones' rural Sebastian County property. The attempted capital murder counts accused him of shooting at the other deputies and officers.
One of the officers, Hackett Police Chief Darrell Spells, was wounded when a bullet grazed his temple. A Greenwood police dog named Kina also suffered two gunshot wounds as she sat in a police vehicle that was struck by gunfire.
Jones, who has been held in the Crawford County jail since his arrest, appeared in court Wednesday under heavy guard. Three deputies surrounded him as he stood before Fitzhugh for his arraignment. Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck and three other deputies stood close by, all armed with handguns.
Jones wore a bullet-resistant vest over his black-and-gray striped jail uniform. His hands were cuffed to his body by a chain around his waist and he shuffled along in court hobbled by leg shackles.
Jones, tall and skinny with several days of beard growth, only spoke to answer questions from Fitzhugh on how far he went in school and whether he understood the charges Fitzhugh read in court. Jones answered "yes" that he understood the charges and replied that he had graduated from high school and had some college education.
Fitzhugh appointed two attorneys with the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, Katherine Streett and T. Scott Brisendine, to represent Jones. He said they were part of the commission's capital murder defense team.
Streett, who was part of the team that represented Gregory Kinsey in the 2013 machete slaying of two Fort Smith men, entered the innocent pleas on Jones' behalf.
Among 13 motions the defense team filed Wednesday was a request to prohibit pretrial publicity. The case has generated widespread news coverage, the motion said, and continued coverage was likely to prejudice Jones' right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.
The motion asked for an order barring prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, the state medical examiner and the state Crime Laboratory from commenting on the case and prohibiting law enforcement agencies from releasing any files related to the investigation to news organizations.
Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue told Fitzhugh that he could respond to the motion in five days.
A motion to preserve evidence specified law enforcement vehicles that were struck in the gunfire during the Aug. 10 shooting. Streett told Fitzhugh that the bullets' angles of entry and exit may be relevant to the defense and may show some shots were unintentional.
"The existence, number, spacing and angle of the projectile entries and exits are expected to play a significant role in the defense of this case," the motion said.
Streett said she was concerned about the sheriff's office and the Greenwood and Hackett police departments repairing their damaged vehicles before defense analysts could examine them.
Fitzhugh asked that the defense attorneys have their experts examine the vehicles as soon as possible because the departments may not be able to go long with vehicles out of action.
Streett and Brisendine also took over Jones' defense in an unrelated charge of felon in possession of a firearm, for which he was scheduled to enter a plea on the day he was arrested last week. Jones' attorney in that case, Fort Smith attorney Marvin Honeycutt, was granted permission to withdraw from the case.
The case accused Jones, a convicted felon, of having a handgun when he was stopped for speeding in Greenwood in February. He was scheduled to go to trial in circuit court today, but Fitzhugh granted a request for a delay.
State Desk on 08/18/2016