A judge postponed a decision Wednesday on whether to transfer a teenager's murder case to juvenile court or dismiss it after hearing testimony from a state medical examiner.
Judge Troy Braswell heard extensive details during a hearing in Faulkner County Circuit Court, and said he has a lot of information to weigh before deciding what is next for Robert Smith III, one of two young men accused in the abduction and killing of a Wooster woman last seen alive at a Conway shopping center in July 2018.
Smith, 17, and his 19-year-old cousin, Tacori Mackrell, both of Pine Bluff, are charged with capital murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and theft of property in the slaying of Elvia Fragstein, 72, who officials say died from strangulation and blows to the chest and spine.
Smith was 16 at the time of Fragstein's death but was charged as an adult. He faces up to life in prison without parole if convicted as an adult, but he cannot face the death penalty because of his age at the time the crime was committed.
Attorney Garfield Bloodman filed a motion in April asking Braswell to dismiss Smith's case or transfer it to juvenile court.
"He is just a kid," Bloodman said Wednesday.
An autopsy revealed that Fragstein suffered broken ribs, a fractured cervical vertebra and a crushed throat, said Stephen Ericson, a medical examiner for the state Crime Laboratory.
Police believe Fragstein had been shopping July 7 at the Conway Commons Shopping Center when she was abducted. Fragstein is seen on security camera footage exiting a store, and another security camera showed her vehicle driving erratically across the parking lot.
Smith and Mackrell also are seen on video footage walking around the shopping center, according to the prosecution.
"They were walking around hunting for someone," Prosecuting Attorney Carol Crews said. "They didn't talk to anyone in the stores and could be seen on video peering into store windows. They saw her by herself."
Helmut Fragstein reported his wife missing later that evening when she didn't return home. The woman's body was found four days later on a rural road near Pine Bluff.
Photos presented Wednesday showed Fragstein's body lying facedown in brush about 5 yards from the road. Her shirt had been lifted off her back, Ericson said.
"It looks like she was pulled to the area and laid there," the medical examiner said.
The body had undergone advanced decomposition, Ericson said, and was identified July 13 using dental records.
"The structures of her chest were completely obliterated by insect activity," Ericson said. "There was extensive tissue loss."
Ericson said none of the skin around Fragstein's neck was left, but examiners could tell she had been strangled or had suffered a severe blow to the throat by the fractured bones around her neck.
"It was a severe, crushing injury to the front of the throat," Ericson said. "It would have been a prolonged application of force."
Fragstein also had five broken ribs on the right side of her body and two on the left side, Ericson said. The right side of her chest had been broken in a line.
"It could mean it was all related to one crushing injury to the chest," Ericson said. "The left side breaks are located in a different area, which could certainly mean a different application of force."
Fragstein's second cervical vertebra, the axis of the spine, also had been fractured at the site of the major arteries of the neck.
"It would have lacerated the artery causing rapid unconsciousness and rapid death," Ericson said. "Blood gets into the brain and the nerves stop functioning. It's a definitely a fatal injury."
Ericson said he had seen this type of injury only twice in his 25 years of experience.
"One was when someone threw a tire iron at someone and it hit them in the neck, and the second was the incident at Dickey-Stephens Park when the coach was hit with a fastball to the neck," Ericson said. "It is a surface area injury that would have significant force."
Ericson said his conclusion was that Fragstein died from strangulation and blunt force trauma to the chest and spine.
Bloodman asked Ericson if some of the broken bones could have been caused by animals.
"There aren't any gnaw marks" Ericson said. "These are crush injuries. Unless this animal jumped on top of her, then I don't think it would be possible."
Officers arrested Smith and Mackrell on July 16, and a day later Fragstein's vehicle was found abandoned and destroyed by fire in a grassy area in Jefferson County, more than 80 miles from where Fragstein had last been seen.
Bloodman argued there was no evidence that showed Smith was involved in Fragstein's death.
"The critical question is what connects Robert Smith to this offense?" Bloodman said. "There is a lot of evidence that something happened, but nothing that shows Smith did anything."
Crews noted that Fragstein's blood was found on Smith's sneakers.
"Blood was found both shoes, and his own mother identified the shoes as the ones he was wearing when she drove him and his cousin to Conway," Crews said. "That is scientific evidence that links him to the homicide."
Bloodman also challenged the constitutionality of a state statute that allows a prosecutor to charge a minor in either the juvenile or criminal division of circuit court if the minor is at least 16 at the time of the crime and if that crime would be a felony if an adult committed it.
"It can lead to racism, favoritism and social discrimination" Bloodman said.
Braswell denied the motion.
Crews said the seriousness of the crime alone is enough to keep the case in circuit court.
"She was not known to them," Crews said. "No link was ever formed. It was a completely random act in the middle of the day outside a TJ Maxx."
State Desk on 07/04/2019