A 34-year-old Little Rock man on Wednesday accepted a 12-year, no-parole prison sentence for killing a couple and leaving their bodies in their burning home.
Raymond Charles Davis accepted the sentence from prosecutors just before jury selection was about to get underway. He pleaded guilty to two counts each of second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors also withdrew an arson charge.
Davis had rejected previous opportunities to plead guilty, and he noticeably hesitated while the judge was questioning him about his intentions to admit wrongdoing.
But after a brief whispered consultation with his attorney, Cheryl Barnard, Davis admitted he was guilty. He does not qualify for parole because of prior convictions for aggravated robbery and gun and drug possession.
Davis' last trial ended in mistrial because jurors could not reach the required unanimous verdict.
Prosecutors agreed to Wednesday's sentence while faced with the prospect that a key witness, a woman who had testified she heard Davis talking about killing the couple, either would not or could not testify against him.
With no physical evidence to tie Davis to the August 2014 killings of David D. Murphy and Charity Hall, prosecutors had relied mainly on the testimony of two witnesses.
One of them was a man who told jurors he had seen Davis with the victims on the day they were killed, bought crack cocaine from Davis, his regular dealer, and, after leaving, heard gunshots from inside their home.
The second was Shockalah Danzie. Prosecutors said the 26-year-old woman had testified to facts about the slaying that only the police or the killer could know, most notably that the couple's dog had been shot and killed as well.
But since Davis' October 2015 mistrial, Danzie has told prosecutors she could not testify again because she could not remember the events she claimed to have witnessed and had described at trial, deputy prosecutor Amanda Fields told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright on Wednesday.
Danzie has been uncooperative before. She recanted her story about Davis for a time last year, saying that she had made it up on the basis of gossip she'd heard on the street. She testified last year that the reason she had changed her story was because Davis and some of his supporters had threatened her and her family.
In the hopes that Danzie would cooperate in the current proceeding, prosecutors had her taken to court to be questioned under oath about her intentions.
But Danzie's sanity has also been called into question since the mistrial.
The 24-year-old is now facing aggravated robbery charges of her own in another court, and her mental evaluation by state doctors has not been completed.
Upon learning that Danzie's mental health is in dispute, Wright said he was doubtful he could allow her to testify in Davis' trial, even with her lawyer's permission.
While the prosecution and the defense were trying to resolve Danzie's status as a witness and before she could be questioned Wednesday, Davis agreed to plead guilty and accept the 12-year sentence.
Danzie was in the courtroom, sitting about 5 feet from Davis when he pleaded guilty.
In 2014, Davis had been paroled about seven weeks before the couple were killed.
Their bodies were found in their burning Spring Street home by Little Rock firefighters who had been called to investigate a middle-of-the-night complaint about the smell of smoke in the neighborhood.
Hall, 29, had been shot through the neck and her body was found next to the back door, and Murphy's body was found next to the fire in the bedroom. He had been shot point-blank three times, twice in his head and once in his back. Their bodies reeked of gasoline.
Testifying at trial, Danzie said that on the night of the killing she overheard Davis tell a mutual friend that he had shot and killed two people and their dog.
She said she was at the friend's home when an agitated Davis, whom she knew as Deuce, showed up.
"He said he had done something bad [saying], 'I killed someone, Little Dave,'" Danzie said.
Davis also said that he then shot "the crackhead b****" when she wouldn't stop screaming and also shot the couple's dog because of its barking, Danzie said.
Davis said he'd shot the man because he had claimed Davis owed him an $80 payment for being allowed to sell drugs out of the South Spring Street home, Danzie told jurors.
Danzie said she had cooperated with police in the hopes of providing closure to the victims' families.
"It was weighing on me, knowing something and not telling," she said.
But, questioned by the defense, Danzie acknowledged that she had waited a month after the killings to talk to police and that she had called them from jail, where she was being held for a theft charge that eventually sent her to prison.
She denied defense accusations at trial that she had been trying to seek favor from authorities in exchange for her cooperation in the murder case.
Metro on 11/17/2016