More than a decade after the shooting death of a south Arkansas business owner, a man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison in his killing, authorities say.
Kendrick C. Story, 36, was arrested Friday on charges of first-degree murder in the death of J.D. Anderson, according to the Columbia County sheriff’s office.
Story entered a guilty plea Thursday with his attorney, Ronald L. Davis Jr. of Little Rock, before Judge David Talley in Columbia County Circuit Court.
Story was believed to have acted alone in a “botched” aggravated robbery April 20, 2003, at J.D.’s Quick Stop in McNeil that ended in Anderson being fatally shot, a news release states.
Two other people inside the store at the time, whose identities were not released, reportedly took money from the store after Story fled, the sheriff’s office said.
Anderson’s death came during a string of convenience store robberies in that part of the state, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported.
Anderson was found at 9:10 p.m. that Easter Sunday by a customer, lying facedown behind the counter in a puddle of blood, according to the newspaper.
Within days of the robbery-turned-shooting, three people were charged in the McNeil grocer’s killing — each on charges of capital murder and aggravated robbery.
Curtis Ray Flowers of McNeil was convicted in March 2004 of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole, records show.
In October 2005, the Democrat-Gazette reported that Flower’s attorney sought a new trial, believing that his client would be proven not guilty with new evidence.
Flowers' name did not appear in records for the Arkansas Department of Correction as of Thursday afternoon.
The Magnolia Reporter reported in 2010 that Flowers was free on bond pending the possibility of a new trial.
Charges were dropped against Craig Lamount Curry in light of the new evidence, and after his August 2004 trial ended in the jury being deadlocked.
The state also dropped charges against Curry’s wife, Jacqueline Curry, who was believed to have acted as a co-conspirator in Anderson’s death.