Knife, ax killer from Jacksonville gets 22-year term

Marvin David Algood
Marvin David Algood

A 56-year-old Jacksonville man has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing a man in a late-night knife and ax attack on a family of three that had befriended him.

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Marvin David Algood will be 78 when he is released from prison because a conviction for a violent crime in Florida in the 1980s, attempted capital aggravated sexual battery, renders him a violent offender under Arkansas law who cannot qualify for parole or early release, deputy prosecutor Barbara Marianni said.

Algood pleaded guilty last week before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, for fatally stabbing Larry Starkey, 66, at Starkey’s Blanche Street home in Jacksonville.

He also pleaded guilty to first-degree battery for attacking Starkey’s son, Jerry Starkey, 34, and second-degree battery for the injuries he inflicted on Jerry Starkey’s girlfriend, Ashley Michelle Thompson, 34, during a late-night February 2015 rampage.

Marianni said Algood was friends with Jerry Starkey and Ashley Thompson and was visiting the home the night of the killing. He had asked the couple for methamphetamine, but they told him they had given up hard drugs, the prosecutor said.

After Thompson and Jerry Starkey had gone to bed that night, they were awakened when Algood hit both of them with a hatchet and stabbed Starkey, Marianni said.

Algood chased after Jerry Starkey, who went to a neighboring house, then returned to the family home, with Algood still in pursuit, to check on his father, who had been asleep in a recliner.

Larry Starkey was stabbed 14 times, the prosecutor said.

Larry Starkey’s blood and Algood’s DNA were found on the hatchet, she said.

Algood was still inside the home when Pulaski County sheriff’s deputies arrived to arrest him.

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