LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County circuit judge Friday set a November trial date for one of two men accused in an April 2009 double homicide, killings made even more poignant by the fact that one of the victims, a 16-year-old boy, as a toddler had lost an older brother to violence.
Stephan Rashad Luckadue, 22, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of teenager Anthony Ray Jackson and 57-year-old Kenneth Byron Marion. They were found shot dead in a borrowed red 1999 Pontiac Sunfire at West 22nd and South Valentine streets in Little Rock.
Circuit Judge Barry Sims pronounced Luckadue fit for trial Friday after state doctors reported he has no mental illness. Luckadue’s co-defendant, Justin Omar Watson, 24, of North Little Rock, was committed to the Arkansas State Hospital last week at the judge’s order after doctors raised doubts about his sanity. Theproceedings against Watson can’t move forward until the question of his mental health is resolved.
Luckadue, formerly of North Little Rock, was arrested about seven hours after Marion’s and Jackson’s bodies were found after Luckadue tried to run over an off-duty uniformed North Little Rock police officer at Indian Hills Elementary School. The officer, Michael Ford, saw Luckadue and Watson breaking into nearby cars, but when he confronted them Luckadue got into a vehicle and drove at him. Ford fired at least twice into the car, and the blue Oldsmobile 98, with bullet holes in the hood and a tire, was found at a nearby apartment complex where Luckadue was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. Luckadue pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder in September 2009 in exchange for a 30-year prisonsentence while Watson was sentenced to eight years in prison for the break-ins.
Luckadue surfaced as a potential suspect in the slayings within three weeks of the killings, court files show, when a cellmate of his, unidentified in the record, told authorities he’d heard Luckadue discussing a double homicide that had occurred at a stoplight. The inmate said he’d heard Luckadue say that he and another man had shot two men, both in the head, using .40- and .380-caliber guns, the types of firearms that police have confirmed were used in the killing.
The inmate said he pretended to be asleep while Luckadue discussed the slayings with a second person, with Luckadue describing the homicide victims as an older “dude” and a younger “dude,” filings show. The intent was to rob the men, the inmate said, not to kill them. Luckadue said the men were shot because the situation escalated so quickly, the inmate said. Watson told police that a .40-caliber pistol in Luckadue’s car belonged to him and he said he’d gotten the weapon the day the men were killed, but Watson and Luckadue have denied involvement in the killings. A roommate of Luckadue’s also told police he’d told her the night of the slaying he and Watson “had to get some fools at a stoplight,” but didn’t elaborate ortalk about it again.
The men would not be charged with the slayings for another year, and files related to the arrest have been sealed.
Jackson was found behind the wheel of the car, with his pockets turned out and “numerous” .40 caliber shells nearby, while Marion had a crack pipe in one hand and $6 in his pockets, records show. A witness said he heard four to five shots and saw a tall, thin man running from the vehicle. Luckadue is 5 feet, 5 inches tall, arrest reports show, while Watson is 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Marion had several felony drug convictions, with the most recent before his death being a March 2004 drug-dealing conviction that netted him a seven-year prison sentence. Jackson’s family acknowledged to reporters that he had been involved in drugs.
Jackson and Marion were killed about two blocks from where Jackson’s brother Toboris Molden had been fatally shot on West Martin Street in February 1994. He was able to make it to his house on Valmar Street where he collapsed in his in his living room, telling his mother, young brothers, including Jackson, and grandmother he loved them. He died in surgery nearly four hours later. Molden was 15. Two brothers, 17-year-old Robert Earl Galvin and 19-year-old Derrick Sherrod Galvin, were each charged with murder, and testimony at trial was that the Galvins had feuded with Molden. Robert Galvin, now 33, was acquitted at trial. Problems with the prosecutors’ chief witness, James Nwankwo, lead to them eventually dropping the case against Derrick Galvin, now 35 and living in Little Rock.
Three weeks after that trial, Robert Galvin was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of another man, 22-year-old Joseph Stacy Madaris, about two months before Molden was killed, and sentenced to 36 years in prison. Derrick Galvin had been acquitted of being involved in Madaris’ murder at an earlier trial.
Most recently, Robert Galvin was arrested on drug-trafficking charges by Sherwood police in March, with officers reporting finding him with pills, suspicious powder and a gun in his car, court filings show. Apparently drunk, according to court records, he was stunned with a Taser after scuffling with officers.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/04/2011