North Little Rock bank robber arrested after high-speed chase, crash gets 20-year sentence

Leamon Lenelle Burnom
Leamon Lenelle Burnom

A North Little Rock bank robber, arrested after leading police on a Halloween 2018 high-speed chase that ended in a crash, has accepted a 20-year prison sentence for the holdup and an earlier robbery at a downtown Little Rock bank.

Sentencing papers filed Wednesday by deputy prosecutor Cole Lorigan show that Leamon Lenelle Burnom, 49, pleaded guilty to fleeing and two counts each of robbery and theft in exchange for the 20-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright.

Under terms of the plea agreement negotiated by public defender Brandy Turner, the robbery charges were reduced from aggravated robbery, and Burnom will serve a 10-year suspended sentence once he's released from prison.

Burnom, who was on parole at the time for a November 2004 robbery conviction, was arrested about 20 minutes after he walked into the Simmons Bank branch at 3901 Camp Robinson Road at 5:24 p.m. Oct. 31, 2018, with a white pillow case and told tellers Daniel Rodriguez-Saidana and Mary Nelson to "fill it up," court filings show.

He fled in a silver Ford F-150 pickup, but North Little Rock police caught up to him around 22nd and Main streets.

Burnom refused to stop for the pursuing officers, driving down an alley and turning south toward Little Rock, crossing into the capital city, where Little Rock officers joined the chase.

Burnom ran stop signs, red lights, drove into oncoming traffic and even spun out across several lanes while changing directions to get away, police reports show.

Police nabbed him when he crashed trying to get onto Interstate 30 from East Ninth Street in Little Rock. Investigators recovered the stolen money, the exact amount was withheld, in the pickup, and he's been jailed ever since.

Little Rock investigators thought Burnom looked like the robber who held up the US Bank branch at 401 W. Capitol Ave. about 2½ months earlier, also telling bank clerks to "fill it up" after presenting teller Shannon Chase with a plastic bag.

The robber in the Aug. 13, 2018, holdup took the undisclosed amount of cash he was given and walked out of the bank. The thief was seen wearing a white polo shirt and a brown baseball cap, and detectives found those clothes less than a block away in some bushes in the 400 block of South Spring Street.

A surveillance video from the neighboring Regions Bank drive-thru showed the man walking without the shirt and cap.

Detectives got a DNA sample from Burnom after his arrest, and state Crime Laboratory examiners were able to match Burnom's genetic material to the clothes last January.

Shown in a photo-lineup, bank manager Tiffany Smith recognized Burnom as the robber, and teller Mikayla Staat tentatively identified him.

Burnom's 20-year sentence is the fourth time he's been sent to prison. Prison records show that the Ohio native was first sent to prison for gun and escape convictions from Crittenden County in April 1989. A 1995 Crittenden County conviction for theft returned him to prison with a 15-year sentence.

In November 2002, Burnom was sentenced to four years on probation for drug possession in Pulaski County but five months later, in March 2003, he carjacked Stephen Mackey in Little Rock. Burnom was arrested by state police in Forrest City about a month later after a high-speed chase in Mackey's car.

Mackey told police that he didn't know Burnom, but he agreed to give Burnom a ride after Burnom approached him on Wolfe Street and asked for a lift.

St. Francis County prosecutors dropped charges related to the chase after Burnom pleaded guilty to robbery in November 2004 in Pulaski County in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence.

Metro on 12/06/2019

Upcoming Events