Attorney for suspect in Little Rock hotel robberies says client was too high on drugs to have submitted to police questioning

A 24-year-old Little Rock man accused in three hotel robberies and the attempted holdup of a fourth hotel told a Pulaski County circuit judge on Tuesday that he's being framed by a co-defendant.

"I didn't rob any hotels," Khiry Cordell Walker said. "I'm a ... scapegoat for someone trying to save their own skin." A scapegoat is a person who is blamed for something someone else has done.

Walker faces a potential life sentence next month when he stands trial on charges of attempted aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, terroristic threatening and three counts each of aggravated robbery and theft. He's also facing drug and gun charges over the circumstances of his December 2017 arrest, three days after the last robbery.

Walker testified in a challenge of the legality of the police interview in which he made incriminating statements about the holdups. He and his lawyer, Steven Ray Davis, argued that Walker was too high on drugs to have been able to waive his rights and submit to police questioning as he did.

"I was high. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand what was going on," Walker said, describing how he had been using "powder [cocaine], ice, sherm [cigarettes dipped in PCP], weed ... strong hallucinogenic drugs."

"PCP will make mothers kill their kids. I don't understand how he [the detective] didn't know I was under the influence of drugs. These are very powerful drugs that ruin people's lives every day."

Judge Chris Piazza rejected that argument after hearing testimony from the detectives, Bobby Martin and Robert Bell, who questioned Walker, and after listening to the recorded interview.

Questioned by deputy prosecutor Sarah Cowen about how he could know details of the robberies if he didn't commit them, Walker denied making any incriminating admissions, testifying that everything he knew came from the real robber, Teman Phillip Hobbs, 29, of Little Rock.

Hobbs had threatened to kill him and his children if he told police what he knew, Walker told the judge.

Hobbs and Walker were arrested together. Hobbs, who was on parole for robbery at the time, has since pleaded guilty to gun and theft charges, plus other unrelated charges in exchange for a seven-year prison sentence.

Walker is charged alone in the Dec. 14, 2017, holdup at the Candlewood Suites on West Markham Street, where clerk Darrell Barnes was robbed.

The other charges come from a string of crimes that occurred Dec. 17, 2017 -- the attempted holdup of the Super 7 on Interstate 30 where the robber threatened clerk Vanita Patel with a gun but fled when he couldn't get into the office; the robbery of clerk Donna Buford at the Garden Inn & Suites on West Eighth Street; and the holdup of clerk Jerome March at the M Star Hotel on Breckenridge Drive.

Gabrielle Deshawn Madison, 30, of Little Rock is charged with Walker in the M Star and Garden Inn robberies.

Metro on 12/12/2018

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