100 years ago
May 2, 1918
JONESBORO -- James Stevens, a well known planter, residing in Big Creek township, northwest of this city, had an altercation with a negro tenant today. The negro drew a revolver and began firing. Stevens returned the fire, each shooting five times, with no effect. The negro fled to the woods and swears he will fight to the death. Sheriff Boyd, with deputies, is hunting for him.
50 years ago
May 2, 1968
• Sidney Carl Roberts, 45, a Little Rock salesman, filed Wednesday as a Republican candidate for governor, forcing Governor Rockefeller into a July 30 primary contest. Roberts said he worked for the Stephens Manufacturing Company of Muskogee, Okla. (and he hastened to add that the firm has no connection with W. R. Stephens of Little Rock). Roberts met briefly with newsmen at the Capitol after filing his corrupt practices plege and expressed disillusionment with Mr. Rockefeller's administration but wouldn't elaborate. "I don't like some of the things he's done in office," Roberts said in reply to a question. Roberts said he was a lifelong Republican, as was his father.
25 years ago
May 2, 1993
FAYETTEVILLE -- Huntsville businessman Larry Gene Coger surrendered late Tuesday at Fayetteville's Drake Field, and then pleaded innocent Wednesday to first-degree murder in Washington County Circuit Court. Coger, 50, is accused of killing exotic dancer Karen Brown Little, 35, at the Fayetteville apartment they shared. Little's charred body was discovered about 35 miles east of the alleged shooting site on Nov. 23, smoldering in a ditch five miles south of Huntsville in Madison County.
10 years ago
May 2, 2008
• The state will resume executing death-row inmates by lethal injection after making protocol changes to better conform with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the procedure. Gov. Mike Beebe made the decision Thursday after conferring with Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, said Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Beebe. "This morning he authorized the [Arkansas Department of Correction], at the recommendation of the attorney general, to make a few changes in the protocol, and then the attorney general, at his discretion, will begin sending letters on inmates who are basically cleared of legal action, and the executions can proceed," DeCample said.
Metro on 05/02/2018