BENTONVILLE -- A Rogers man is being held in the Benton County jail without bail on a capital-murder charge in the death of his roommate.
Don Paul Yates, 53, was arrested Thursday at his brother's house in Salem in Fulton County and was returned to Benton County over the weekend.
Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green said Monday that she agreed with Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Sexton's request that Yates be held without bail. Arraignment is set for 8 a.m. Nov. 5 in Benton County Circuit Court.
Yates also faces aggravated robbery and theft of property charges, according to a probable cause affidavit. And he was wanted on a charge of failure to appear in a Colorado case, the affidavit said. He was arrested Sept. 6 on four counts of felony possession of a weapon in Parachute, Colo., and skipped a court date scheduled for Sept. 26, court records state.
Yates, wearing black-and-white-striped jail clothes, sat on the back bench of an area designated for jail detainees before his bail hearing. He thumbed through legal paperwork, took a few glances around the courtroom, but mostly looked straight ahead.
Police found Patrick Quinley, 58, dead about 1 p.m. on Sept. 25 after they conducted a welfare check at 53 W. Alton Circle in Benton County. Quinley had not been to work since Sept. 21, the affidavit said.
Yates' address was listed as 53 W. Alton Circle in Benton County jail booking information.
Quinley was found dead on the living room floor, the affidavit said. Dr. Adam Craig with the state Crime Laboratory determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. Full autopsy results are not available yet, the affidavit said.
Police could not find Quinley's credit cards and cellphone, and his Ford F-150 pickup was missing.
Earlier in September, Quinley filed a report with Rogers police that stated Yates had taken his pickup. He got the pickup and an iPhoneX from Yates after Yates was arrested in Colorado, the affidavit said. Quinley had recently been in a relationship with Yates, according to the affidavit.
Yates' brother, Ralph Yates, told police that his brother arrived at his home Sept. 21 and was driving a Budget rental truck at the time. The brothers drove to pick up the F-150, Ralph Yates told police. He said the area where they went was about an hour and half from Mountain Home. Later, he said it was somewhere in Mountain Home, and they dropped the rental truck off in Jonesboro, the affidavit said.
Ralph Yates told police that his brother kept asking to check the news in a town that started with an "R," and at one point said, "They found the body," according to the affidavit. Ralph Yates said he didn't know what Yates was referring to and he didn't ask, the affidavit said.
The F-150 was found behind Ralph Yates' home in Salem. Police found Quinley's iPhoneX in a backpack and his wallet in a storage tub inside the home, the affidavit said. A loaded .38-caliber revolver was found under a pillow in Don Yates' bedroom. A white t-shirt with suspected blood stains was found in a trash can, the affidavit said.
A neighbor in Rogers told police that he saw a skinny white man in his 30s with short brown hair at Quinley's residence Sept. 23. The neighbor said he saw the man with a Budget rental box truck. The neighbor said he later saw the man leave the home and sound the alarm on the F-150 with a keyless remote. The neighbor told police that the man appeared to try and hide when he was spotted and later went into the home.
The neighbor later noticed that the rental truck and the F-150 were gone. Another neighbor reported seeing Quinley's roommate, later identified at Don Yates, at the home the previous week, the affidavit said.
Ralph Yates told police that he and his brother drove four hours to get the pickup. He said it was near Rogers, but he did not know if it was in Rogers, the affidavit said.
State Desk on 10/04/2018