Reports released in jogger slaying

FORT SMITH -- John Suleski sat in the back seat of his black Chevrolet HHR with the barrel of his loaded .22-caliber rifle in his mouth when he saw 44-year-old Brent Morrison jog by, he told police.

He reached up from the back seat, turned on the ignition switch and rolled down the back passenger window. He aimed the gun at the middle of Morrison's back and fired from 138 feet away, according to a Fort Smith police diagram of the scene. He said he remembered Morrison turning around to him and yelling "ouch."

Police said Suleski confessed after the early morning shooting July 11 that he kept pulling the trigger, shooting at Morrison even after he had fallen to the ground, until Suleski had fired all 10 bullets in the gun.

A preliminary autopsy report from the state Crime Laboratory stated that Morrison had nine gunshot wounds in the back of his head, upper abdomen, back, right side and the back of his right thigh.

"John stated that he thought that if he shot and hurt someone else, his pain would stop and he would feel better," Fort Smith police detective Lee McCabe wrote in the report of his interview with Suleski. "I asked John Suleski if he felt better about himself after he shot Brent Morrison and [he] stated that he did not."

Suleski told police he had been having marital and financial problems and was miserable and suicidal, the report said.

His wife, Melissa, was talking about divorce. She was working. He was taking classes at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, working one day a week at Summit Medical Center in Van Buren, and had joined the Arkansas Air National Guard 188th Wing about a year before, the report said.

Suleski was a four- or five-year veteran of the Marine Corps, his wife told police.

Suleski, 25, has pleaded innocent in Sebastian County Circuit Court to first-degree murder and first-degree unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle. He is being held without bail in the Sebastian County jail. No trial date has been set.

Suleski's account of Morrison's shooting was in a stack of police investigation reports released last week by Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue.

He released the case file after Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor ruled on a request by Suleski's attorney for a gag order.

Sebastian County Public Defender Dan Stewart requested the order, arguing pretrial publicity would damage his client's chances of getting an impartial jury to give him a fair trial.

Shue argued in his response sealing the case file would violate the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act and would constitute prior restraint, a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In a Sept. 3 order, Tabor granted part of Stewart's request and ordered attorneys and law enforcement officers not to comment on the case. He denied the request to seal the case file, except for crime scene and autopsy photos showing Morrison's body.

When Arlan Baker of Fort Smith drove near Morrison's body on Wells Lake Road at Chaffee Crossing about 6:45 a.m., Suleski got out of his vehicle and told Baker he had just arrived and didn't know the man in the road or what happened to him, the police report said.

But Mark Cogburn of Fort Smith told officers he was jogging on Wells Lake Road shortly after 5:30 a.m. and had seen Suleski's HHR traveling past him erratically.

Investigators said they decided to question Suleski after finding the rifle and 10 spent shell casings in the back seat of the HHR and because the story he gave to police didn't match what witnesses had said.

At the police station, detective Larry Phillips noted Suleski was nervous during his interview, clenching his jaw as he gave one story, then changing it when investigators pointed out conflicting statements from witnesses, the report said.

"I told John this is the time to take the floor and tell us the truth about the shooting," Phillips said in his report. "He started crying, placing his head in his hands and looking down at the floor."

According to the report, Suleski said he left his home in Barling on the morning of July 11, when his wife went to bed after returning home at 4:30 a.m. from her night job.

He drove to Chaffee Crossing, parked off Wells Lake Road, got out and picked some wildflowers for Melissa, then got back in the vehicle and put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, he said in the report, adding he couldn't pull the trigger.

He told police he saw a bicyclist ride pass his car and would have shot at him, but he rode by too fast for Suleski to draw a bead.

After shooting Morrison, Suleski said, he put the gun back in his mouth and was going to kill himself. But then Baker arrived at the scene. Suleski wrapped the gun in a blanket and got out of the car, the report said.

NW News on 09/14/2015