Two inmates in the state prison system died this week -- one from multisystem organ failure and another from cardiac arrest, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction said.
Allen Evans, 70, who was an inmate at Ouachita River Correctional Center in Malvern, died of multisystem failure at 5:46 a.m. Friday. He was receiving palliative care, Correction Department spokesman Cathy Frye said.
Evans of Hudson, Fla., was serving a 45-year sentence for attempted capital murder and using a firearm in the commission of the crime. Evans was convicted of shooting Jonesboro attorney William "Bill" Webster in the face and chest with a .22-caliber Magnum rifle in 2004.
Evans admitted in trial testimony that he shot Webster because the attorney had represented him poorly in a medical malpractice lawsuit and a land deal in Sharp County. Webster was hospitalized and underwent several months of rehabilitation.
Ouachita River Correctional Center inmate Floyd Summerville, 64, died at 7:29 p.m. Wednesday at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock after he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest, Frye said.
Summerville was serving a life sentence for a 1971 first-degree murder conviction out of Pulaski County. He was convicted of shooting W.W. Dobbs two times when Dobbs answered a late-night knock at his door. Summerville, who asked Dobbs for a drink of water and some battery jumper cables to start his stalled vehicle, fired four times through the home's storm door, striking Dobbs twice and killing him.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was not notified of Summerville's Wednesday-night death until after 9 p.m. Thursday. When asked why the notification was not more immediate, Frye said she was waiting Wednesday to notify Summerville's family. She said she "forgot" Thursday to send the notification because she had spent "most of the day at the Capitol."
Five Correction Department inmates have died since Jan. 1. There were 56 Arkansas prison deaths in 2014.
Metro on 01/17/2015