FAYETTEVILLE — Reta Flowers switched from tearful to surly and back again during two hours of testimony Tuesday in the second trial of her ex-husband, who is accused of killing her mother.
Raymond Robert Lee Douglas is accused of killing Goldie Thornsberry, 65, who was last seen in Fayetteville in January 1996. She was reported missing two months later, and her remains were found in Little Rock’s Pankey community in 2000. The bones were not identified as Thornsberry’s until June 2010 through the use of DNA.
Flowers burst into tears Tuesday when she testified that Douglas told her he had killed her mother because “she wanted me to leave him.”
Thornsberry, she testified, “didn’t like him and didn’t think he was good enough for me.”
Under questioning by defense attorney Ronald Davis Jr., she conceded that she lied to police about what she knew of her mother’s death because she was afraid of Douglas. She didn’t tell police until earlier this year that Douglas had confessed to her in 1999 that he had killed Thornsberry by hitting her on the head with a clock radio, then strangling her with a cord.
“How on God’s green earth did you wait that long?” Davis asked Flowers.
Douglas and Flowers were charged with first degree murder the same month that the woman’s remains were identified. Last week, Flowers pleaded guilty to hindering apprehension in exchange for her testimony against Douglas.
Flowers grew frustrated by Davis’ numerous questions during his lengthy cross-examination.
“I think you’re trying to twist things to make them what you want,” she said after Davis asked her why she was smiling.
Davis tallied that Flowers admitted six times during Tuesday’s testimony that she had lied to police. When he asked her if he had the number correct, Flowers said, “You’re keeping count.”
“No. They’re keeping count,” Davis shot back, pointing to the jury.
“Isn’t it a fact that you’ve been totally dishonest with police up until the moment you were offered a deal?” Davis asked Flowers.
“Yes,” she responded.
Although Flowers hasn’t been sentenced, she testified Tuesday that prosecutors said she can expect a 20-year sentence with 10 years suspended. She could be released within five years.
During Douglas’ first trial in August, Flowers was on the stand when Circuit Judge William Storey of Fayetteville declared a mistrial. The judge said Flowers’ testimony allowed the jury to hear potentially prejudicial testimony related to Douglas’ past prison time.
His previous incarceration came after he and Flowers pleaded guilty to second-degree forgery in connection with Thornsberry’s drained bank accounts on Sept. 5, 1996.
Flowers was about four months pregnant in late January 1996 when her mother vanished. Flowers, Douglas and one of Flowers’ daughters were living at the time with Thornsberry in the woman’s one-bedroom apartment on South Lewis Street.
Flowers and Douglas moved to Little Rock’s Pankey community on March 1, 1996, to live with Douglas’ mother in a home that is about a quarter of a mile from the spot where Thornsberry’s remains were found four years later.
In 1996, Douglas’ father was living in another Pankey home across Cantrell Road from a vacant lot where in July 2000 a surveying crew found Thornsberry’s remains in an abandoned cistern.
Douglas and Flowers divorced in 1999.
On Tuesday, Flowers testified that Douglas told her that “everyone is related” in Pankey, which he described as “his old stompin’ grounds.”
She said Douglas told her that Pankey was like Las Vegas because “what happens in Pankey, stays in Pankey.”
Flowers was married and living in southwest Little Rock when she was arrested in Thornsberry’s death. Douglas was living in Benton.
Douglas remains in the Washington County jail in lieu of $250,000 bond. Flowers is in the same facility awaiting sentencing.
Closing statements are expected this morning, with the jury to get the case later in the day.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/26/2011