Little Rock kidnapping, assault suspect's bail at $205,000

Terrance Cromwell
Terrance Cromwell

A Pulaski County Circuit judge on Wednesday set bail at $205,000 for a Little Rock man accused of holding his girlfriend against her will, after the defense challenged the credibility of the accuser, describing her as an admitted methamphetamine addict of questionable mental health.

That amount was still almost 10 times the $25,000 that Terrance Devon "Body Snatcher" Cromwell, 42, had requested from Judge Leon Johnson. Cromwell had been jailed without bail since his arrest last year.

At Wednesday's hearing, his attorney, David Sudduth, disparaged the case against his client as "weak" because authorities have no witnesses who could confirm the 41-year-old woman's accusations. He said the prosecution case relies almost entirely on the word of a woman who has admitted to a longtime methamphetamine addiction.

Sudduth also questioned why police have found so few witnesses, telling the judge there is evidence that at least two other people were at Cromwell's Meadow Lane home on the day the woman said he first refused to let her leave.

There's reason to believe numerous other people would have been at the residence at different times, Sudduth said, telling the judge there's evidence the home frequently was used as a place to to buy, sell and use illegal drugs.

The one witness is Donna Rice, the rental property's caretaker who was living at the residence. She told investigators she never saw Cromwell lay a hand on the woman, although Rice said she regularly heard the couple arguing during the time the accuser was staying at the house, according to testimony.

When she was asked about violence between the couple, Rice told police that Cromwell said the accuser recently had tried to stab him and that he had photographs of the attack on his phone. But Cromwell never said anything about a stabbing attempt in his police interview, detective Jacob Pasman testified.

Cromwell at first denied knowing the woman before eventually acknowledging that they had been dating, Pasman said.

Sudduth questioned Pasman about whether Cromwell's accuser was as badly injured as police reported. Using photographs of the woman taken while she was hospitalized, the attorney pointed to a several "straight-line" cuts on the woman's left arm. Sudduth suggested they could have been self-inflicted.

He questioned why detectives had not inquired into the woman's background to determine whether she was mentally ill or has been known to mutilate herself, even after Cromwell told them she was "crazy."

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According to Pasman, Cromwell's accuser told police that she'd been dating Cromwell for about two weeks in February 2015 when, during a visit to his home, he told her he'd kill her if she tried to leave.

Over the next eight days, Cromwell beat her with a baseball bat and his hands and also twice had choked her unconscious, the woman told detectives in an interview from her hospital room where she was recovering from broken ribs and a collapsed lung, injuries she said Cromwell had inflicted.

She also told police that she had consensual sex with Cromwell and they had smoked methamphetamine and watched TV together during that time, police said. After he beat her with the bat, the woman told police, she continued to have sex with Cromwell but only because she was afraid to refuse him, according to police reports.

She contacted police after Cromwell's mother, Jeannie Cromwell, 67, took her to the hospital, concerned because she was visibly ill, according to testimony.

The charges against Cromwell -- kidnapping, first-degree domestic battery, aggravated assault on a household member and terroristic threatening -- together carry a potential life sentence.

Sudduth acknowledged his client has an extensive criminal history but urged the judge not to hold his client's past against him, but to focus on the strength of the case against Cromwell to set bail. Jeannie Cromwell told the judge that her son would go back to work for his father if the family could afford his bail.

Cromwell got his nickname from working at his father's Hamburg funeral home.

"I want him out of Little Rock. Period," she testified. "There's just too much to get into here."

In March 2013, Cromwell was arrested by Little Rock police over allegations he had hit his mother in the face with a pistol, but there were no records immediately available on Wednesday to determine whether formal charges were filed or if the arrest had been expunged.

Deputy prosecutor Jayme Butts-Hall did not suggest a specific bail amount but asked the judge to set a "high" amount because of Cromwell's record.

"Ms. Cromwell is right. There's a lot to get into and Mr. Cromwell has certainly done that," she told the judge, describing his criminal history.

Cromwell is awaiting trial on a charge of sexual indecency with a child over accusations that he exposed himself to a 14-year-old girl at a Little Rock motel in September 2014. His co-defendant, Akym Lamaar Avery, 41, accepted a six-year prison term and pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault last year.

Cromwell also has an outstanding drug case in Saline County arising from his December 2014 arrest by a sheriff's deputy who found Cromwell asleep on the side of a road. Cromwell dropped a crack pipe and tried to hide it from the officer, court records show.

He's also awaiting trial on three counts of aggravated assault, accused of threatening three people with a gun during an February 2013 confrontation at the Heritage House motel at 7500 S. University Ave.

One of the people told police she found Cromwell, an acquaintance, asleep in her bedroom and when he refused to get out, she left, according to police reports. She said she got into a pickup with friends, and Cromwell stepped out of her room and pointed a pistol at them. Police arrested Cromwell in her room, where they also seized a .22-caliber pistol.

Those cases have been slow to move forward, in part because Cromwell has twice missed court hearings requiring that they be rescheduled. Prosecutors have since charged him with 10 felony counts of failure to appear.

His lawyers also have spent the past year exploring a potential insanity defense, a process that required several mental evaluations and required Cromwell's brief commitment to the State Hospital. Just this month he was pronounced fit to stand trial, court records show.

In March 2014, Cromwell was sentenced to 10 years on probation after pleading guilty to first-degree false imprisonment, first-degree battery, aggravated assault and felon in possession of a firearm. Saline County deputies said that in August 2012, Cromwell shot a man, Anthony Munday, in the foot and kicked a woman, Taylor Ann Simpson, in the face at the Pique Drive home of Jessica Nicole Dobbins before taking all three of them at gunpoint to a Little Rock park.

Metro on 12/29/2016

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