TEXARKANA -- A man who was on parole for a 1990s murder killed his girlfriend Thursday night in Nashville and then took his own life, authorities said.
The bodies of Gracie Haddox, mid-40s, and her live-in boyfriend, Gerald Martin, late 40s, were discovered by Haddox's 16-year-old child, who found the pair dead in a bedroom at their home Friday morning, Howard County Sheriff Bryan McJunkins said. He is calling the deaths a murder-suicide.
Haddox, a mother of seven, shared the house at 310 Meadow Lane with three of her children, one of her grandchildren and Martin, McJunkins said.
Martin, who is originally from Mineral Springs, had lived with Haddox for about two years.
In 1991, Martin was arrested in Texas in the killing of his girlfriend, said Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Chesshir of the 9th Judicial District in Arkansas. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1993 and was paroled in 2013.
"The parole was transferred to Arkansas when he moved back," Chesshir said.
"There is something wrong with the system when someone is sentenced to life for murder and is let out early," he said.
Law enforcement officials did not disclose how Haddox died but said Martin was found hanging from a rope in a bedroom closet.
"We will let the Crime Lab determine how she died," McJunkins said, referring to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock.
NW News on 05/15/2017