LITTLE ROCK — The parents of a man found naked and unresponsive in a hot tub with a Little Rock television weather forecaster last year have filed a lawsuit claiming that the forecaster and two other men were negligent in failing to prevent their son’s death.
The parents of Dexter Williams also accuse Brett Cummins of sexual abuse, saying in the lawsuit that Cummins had been using drugs and drinking alcohol with Williams and was “negligent in promoting an environment of performing physical acts which inflicted pain and caused injury to an impaired person, as well as promoting and participating in deviate sexual activity, contact or intercourse with a mentally incapacitated or impaired individual.”
Cummins, now 34, was a forecaster for KARK-TV, Channel 4, when Williams, 24, was found dead Sept. 5 in a house at 16 Village Way in Maumelle. Cummins resigned from the TV station four days later.
Richard Watts, an attorney for Cummins, on Saturday said his client “regrets the young man’s death, but he doesn’t believe he had any part in causing or contributing to his death.”
He said Cummins, who no longer lives in Arkansas, had a sexual relationship with Williams but did not abuse him.
“They were both adults, and I find that charge to be ludicrous,” Watts said.
He noted that Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley found that no charges were warranted in the death.
Christopher Barbour, 37, told police that he had been drinking and using illegal drugs at his house with Cummins and Williams when the three of them got into the hot tub about 10 p.m. Sept. 4.
Barbour told police that he left the tub about an hour later and went to sleep on the couch.
When he awoke about 8 a.m., he told police, he found Cummins and Williams in the hot tub, which had no water in it. He told police that he woke Cummins, and the two men noticed that Williams was unresponsive and that his face was discolored.
Cummins screamed, fled the bathroom and threw up on the living room floor, Barbour told police. He told police that the meteorologist drove off but said he would return.
When police arrived, they said they found Williams in the tub, wearing only what appeared to be a dog collar with a chain. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Cummins returned to the house shortly after police arrived and gave a statement to detectives, police said.
The state Crime Laboratory determined that Williams died from asphyxiation with “significant findings of acute combined methamphetamine and amphetamine intoxication.”
In the lawsuit, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Friday by Little Rock attorney Gary Green, Ed and Carol Williams say Cummins and Barbour “watched and participated as [Dexter] Williams ingested multiple medications, along with illicit drugs, and took Williams into a hot tub, where they all engaged in sexual acts with each other.”
The lawsuit claims that Barbour and Cummins waited 30 minutes before calling the police and that neither made any attempt to resuscitate Williams or check him for signs of life.
The parents also named Jason Taylor, the owner of the house, as a defendant, saying he “negligently entrusted his residence to Defendant Barbour, knowing his nature to be that of one who has reckless proclivities and tendencies toward reckless and hazardous behaviors.”
The lawsuit seeks damages for Ed and Carol Williams’ “emotional distress” and expenses associated with their son’s death, as well as for their son’s pain, suffering and loss of life.
The suit was assigned to Circuit Judge Alice Gray.
There was no answer Saturday at a phone number listed in a police report for Barbour. A phone number for Taylor could not be located.
Watts said Dexter Williams took his own drugs and alcohol to the house in Maumelle and that Cummins didn’t give him any of either.
After Barbour woke Cummins, Cummins did try to wake Williams, but found him unresponsive, Watts said.
As for the delay in calling police, Watts said, “There was a period of time where Cummins and Mr. Barbour had to collect themselves,” but he didn’t know how long that took.
Cummins “was emotionally distraught,” Watts said. “He was extremely shaken up by it.”
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 09/02/2012