TEXARKANA -- A prison inmate accused of capital murder in the 2016 death of a Miller County correctional officer will receive treatment in the state's mental hospital, a circuit judge has ordered.
Tramell Mackenzie Hunter, 28, is accused of killing correctional officer Lisa Mauldin with his bare hands in the kitchen of the Miller County jail on Dec. 18, 2016.
Hunter also is charged with battery of a peace officer over accusations that he also seriously injured correctional officer Damaris Allen.
Hunter has been found incompetent because of mental-health issues. When a defendant accused of a serious crime is deemed unfit to proceed, he is typically sent to the State Hospital in Little Rock for treatment in hopes that competency can be restored and the case can move toward a disposition.
But Hunter's case is different because of his simultaneous status as a Miller County capital-murder defendant and as an inmate in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Correction, serving time for 2011 Pulaski County convictions for aggravated robbery and domestic battery.
At the time of the attacks on Mauldin and Allen, Hunter was assigned to the Miller County jail as part of the Correction Department's 309 program, which allows certain offenders to serve their sentences in county jails that need inexpensive labor. He was serving a 15-year term at the time of the attacks on Mauldin and Allen. Hunter shot his uncle and his mother and stole his mother's car in 2010.
State Desk on 11/02/2018