Arkansas Dollar Tree employee abducted, later found dead on interstate, police say

An assistant manager at a Dollar Tree in Jonesboro was abducted and later found dead on Interstate 555 after she was hit by a car Sunday night, police said.

A witness told Jonesboro police that an armed man approached two employees as they were leaving the store at the corner of Nettleton Avenue and Red Wolf Boulevard sometime around 9:30 p.m., the department said in a news release. The witness said the man took a phone from one of the employees and then forced Loretta Ann Pixler into her car at gunpoint, making her drive away with him.

Pixler’s car, a black 2004 Hyundai Accent, was last seen driving south on Red Wolf Boulevard, police said.

State police and Poinsett County sheriff’s deputies later responded to a reported vehicle-pedestrian accident on I-555 near the exit for Payneway, the release said. Authorities then determined the victim there was Pixler.

“She was hit by another car, unrelated to the robbery,” said Capt. Lynn Waterworth, a spokesman for Jonesboro police.

About 48 minutes after the robbery was reported, state police found Pixler’s car in a ditch “some distance away” from where Pixler died, the release said.

Pixler’s body will be sent to the state Crime Lab for an autopsy. Waterworth said state police are investigating the crash that killed Pixler. It was unclear how or why she was in the road, Waterworth said.

The witness at the Dollar Tree told police the kidnapper is black and that he was wearing a dark short-sleeved shirt, gray pants and a red bandana covering his face. Waterworth said investigators were looking into “a multitude” of leads but had no concrete information to disclose.

Anyone with any information on the death or the suspect is encouraged to call Jonesboro police at (870) 935-5657.

Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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