Man pleads guilty to 5 murder counts

HOT SPRINGS -- A man whose conviction on five counts of capital murder was overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2012 pleaded guilty Thursday in Garland County Circuit Court to lesser charges and admitted his involvement in the murders of five Pearcy residents.

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Samuel Lee Conway, 30, of Hot Springs appeared before Judge John Homer Wright and pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, reduced from the original capital murder counts, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison on each count, to run concurrently.

Additional charges, including two counts of aggravated residential burglary and four counts of theft of property, were withdrawn by Deputy Prosecutor Joe Graham, who said that all the charges stemmed from a burglary Conway and others committed Nov. 12, 2009. That burglary resulted in the deaths of Jeremy Gentry, 24; his girlfriend, Kristyn Warneke, 19; his parents, Pamela Gentry, 52, and Edward Gentry Jr., 56; and his grandfather, Edward Gentry Sr., 80.

The bodies of Jeremy Gentry, Kristyn Warneke, Pamela Gentry and Edward Gentry were found by firefighters responding to a fire in a mobile home early the next day on Adam Brown Road. The Gentrys were living in the mobile home on property owned by Edward Gentry Sr., a 30-year military veteran and retired nurse whose body was found inside his house on the same property a few hours later.

The elder Gentry, a recent amputee, had been bound, gagged, beaten and shot. His stolen truck was found burned and abandoned in Hot Springs the same day.

The other four victims were also shot, some multiple times, and then burned when the home was set on fire.

One accomplice -- Jeremy Pickney, 26, of Hot Springs -- is serving a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty Oct. 6, 2011. Another suspected accomplice -- Marvin Stringer, 22 -- was killed in a shootout with police a week after the killings.

Prosecuting Attorney Terri Harris described the Conway case as "an emotional drain" on the community and Gentry's surviving family members.

"Now they have a semblance of justice," Harris said. "They can move on with their lives."

Conway, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit and wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, answered "yes, sir" and "no, sir" to Wright as he asked questions in connection with Conway's change of plea. After Graham read the accusations, Conway was asked if anything in their description was incorrect, and he said, "No, sir."

Wright said that Conway will be given credit for time served since his arrest on Nov. 20, 2009. Conway was convicted June 18, 2011, of five counts of capital murder and other charges after a four-day trial in circuit court.

On Nov. 8, 2012, the Arkansas Supreme Court threw out the five murder convictions after siding with arguments made by Conway's appellate attorney, Janis Vaughan, who argued that Conway's right to a fair trial was thwarted when Wright refused to dismiss a juror who said near the end of testimony that he had made up his mind about Conway's guilt and told Wright that he didn't think he could be a fair juror anymore.

On Nov. 20, 2014, Conway was convicted of capital murder and aggravated robbery in connection with the March 14, 2005, shooting death of his aunt, Mary Adams Anderson, 50, while she was babysitting her grandchildren, ages 2 and 3, at her son's home at 117 Maurice St.

Conway was sentenced to life in prison without parole on the murder charge and 49 years on the robbery charge, to run consecutively. He had appealed the sentence to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but it was recently affirmed.

"Once the conviction was affirmed, we felt we could move forward with trying to obtain a plea in this case," Harris said.

Harris said that even if they got a conviction at a second trial, there was no guarantee that Conway wouldn't appeal it again, meaning they would potentially have to try the case a third time.

"In my opinion, it's best for the family to finally have some closure," Harris said. "There is something to be said for this defendant standing in open court and accepting responsibility for what happened."

State Desk on 06/14/2016

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