Damon Wilkins was excited, family members say. On Aug. 26, after 22 years in prison, his twin brother became eligible to apply for parole due to a 2010 Supreme Court decision barring life sentences for juveniles.
"He was happy as hell to know [his brother] was getting out," said Wilkins' aunt, Sheila Davis. "Because they'd been apart for so many years."
Saturday, eight days after finding out about his brother's prospects of leaving prison, Wilkins, 38, was shot to death outside his home at 7525 Fairfield Drive sometime around 8:30 p.m., a Little Rock Police report said.
Donald Lee Brown, 40, was arrested shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday and charged with first-degree murder, said Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan. Police are still searching for another suspect in Wilkins' death, he said.
A gun was recovered at the scene, but police are unsure who it belongs to, McClanahan said.
Wilkins' brother, Randy Damon Wilkins, also 38, has been in an Arkansas prison since he was 15 for killing a teenage mother of two while trying to rob her mother.
Randy Damon Wilkins became the first of 18 defendants convicted of capital murder in Pulaski County to benefit from a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring automatic life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder.
The court, which found in 2010 that juveniles are more impressionable than adults, made the ruling retroactive in 2012, eventually clearing the way for new sentences for the Arkansas offenders.
Randy Damon Wilkins was convicted in early 1995 of killing Detra Bolden, 19, during a January 1994 robbery. He received a life sentence, but that was reduced to 30 years, making him immediately eligible for parole.
The twins' sister, Candid Butler, said she called Wilkins on Sunday morning to inform him of his twin brother's death.
"I just told him what happened," she said. "I just told him to stay calm.
"He was just saying, 'what happened, who did it' ... he didn't sound upset."
Damon Wilkins' shooting Saturday followed a confrontation earlier in the day. Police responded to a disturbance at the Fairfield Drive address about 45 minutes before the shooting, according to a police report. A witness told police that Wilkins and Brown had gotten into an argument, and Wilkins had pulled a gun. Both men had left the scene at that time, so officers did not make any arrests.
McClanahan told reporters in a press conference Sunday that Wilkins' death is the 10th homicide in the southwest precinct this year -- the most homicides of the Little Rock Police Department's three precincts. There have been 22 homicides in the city as a whole.
Chamika Rogers, 36, said Saturday that she and Wilkins, whom she identified as her boyfriend, had just finished moving from North Little Rock to a house in southwest Little Rock on Friday.
She said "this never would have happened" if they hadn't moved.
As she spoke, Rogers held to her chest a picture frame in which she had placed a printed-out mugshot of Wilkins that had been given to her by the homicide detectives.
She described Wilkins as "a little mouthy" but funny.
Rogers said the men came back after the argument, and were drinking gin on her stoop. She said Wilkins apologized to Brown and the other men after the argument in an effort to defuse the tensions.
But she said a man later showed up in a gray Cadillac, got out and began to shoot Wilkins.
She and her 14-year-old twin daughters witnessed the shooting, Rogers said.
Metro on 09/05/2016