A neighbor recorded video of at least part of the May slaying of a 50-year-old Little Rock man on her cellphone, according to police testimony at a Monday bail hearing for one of the suspects.
Richard Robinson's bloody body was found in the roadway in front of his West 29th Street home. Charged with first-degree murder are next-door neighbor Gerald Lamont Ashby and Ashby's former girlfriend, Kowana Rochelle Hudson. The couple were arrested about five hours after Robinson was killed and have been jailed since.
Deputy prosecutor Scott Duncan opposed reducing Ashby's $250,000 bail. He described Ashby as a flight risk for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson, noting that the defendant was on probation for an August 2011 conviction for cocaine trafficking when he was charged with the killing
Sentenced to five years of probation on the trafficking charge, Ashby never reported to his probation officer, paid his $1,000 fine nor served his one-week term in jail, court filings show.
[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of Little Rock’s 2017 killings]
Despite a warrant issued for his arrest, Arkansas authorities didn't hear from Ashby for another 3½ years -- until he was arrested at his 29th Street home in April, the prosecutor told the judge.
Ashby spent six days in jail before being released on $2,500 bond, about three weeks before Robinson was killed, according to the prosecutor. Duncan told the judge that in 2012 Ashby was arrested on a residential burglary charge in Spokane, Wash., but the outcome of that case was not known.
Ashby's attorney David Warford said Ashby is considering a justification defense because he appears to have been acting in self-defense.
But the judge rejected Ashby's petition for reduced bail after hearing testimony from detective Greg Siegler, who said Ashby, 26, was seen beating Robinson with a wooden plank during a fight that included Hudson.
Witnesses also saw Hudson, 38, stabbing the older man, Siegler told the judge. The autopsy shows Robinson died from blunt-force trauma and stab wounds, the investigator said, describing 16 stab wounds Robinson suffered.
The neighbor's cellphone recording shows Hudson "making a downward thrusting" motion against Robinson's body during a melee in front of Robinson's home.
Police questioned 10 witnesses to the fight, who reported the altercation began with an argument between Robinson and Ashby that turned violent after Robinson used unspecified "racial slurs," Siegler told the judge.
One witness said Robinson had initially brandished a knife while another described Robinson throwing a hammer at Ashby, Siegler said. Another witness described seeing Ashby making a stabbing motion at Robinson, the detective said.
A crowd gathered around Robinson and the two defendants, he testified, saying that spectators also threw things, including a cinder block, during the fight.
The older man was repairing the property in exchange for being allowed to live at the residence. The argument began when Ashby confronted Robinson about something on the front porch of Robinson's house, Siegler testified.
Ashby's mother called for her son to "leave the old man alone" during the argument, he said.
Ashby did not testify Monday, but his current girlfriend, Sierra Davis, told the judge that he would live with her on Geyer Springs Road if he could make bail. She said she's known Ashby for three years and that they've dated for one.
She said she thought she would be able to get him a job if he was released, telling the judge the most Ashby could afford was $50,000. Ashby was raised in the area and goes to church there, she said.
Ashby is scheduled for trial in March. Hudson is set for trial in February. Prosecutors say they plan to try her first.
Court filings show that Hudson and Ashby had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship between July 2008 and sometime in 2014.
On three occasions between November 2011 and October 2016, Hudson obtained temporary protection orders against Ashby, claiming in separate sworn statements to the court that he had threatened to kill her, beaten her and pointed a gun at her.
"Our whole relationship has been based on nothing but violence," she wrote in her October 2016 affidavit. "I can't count how many times I have been physically abused by Gerald."
She had accused him of taking her car, deliberately flattening two tires, then threatening he was going to "get" her. But she withdrew those allegations a week later, stating that she had since learned what happened to her tires was an accident.
"Gerald Ashby has since paid for my tires in full and has apologized about the incident," she wrote in a letter to the court. "He was under the influence, and because of his past actions I automatically thought that it was going to be trouble."
Hudson was not present for Monday's hearing.
She has a felony conviction from April 1999 for maintaining a drug premises, stemming from her January 1998 arrest with boyfriend Artie Ray Nowden Jr. over accusations that the couple were selling cocaine out of their home at 3012 W. 15th St. The charges against Nowden, now 40, were dropped after he pleaded guilty to drug dealing in a separate case.
Metro on 11/02/2017