FORT SMITH — Charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated residential burglary were filed Monday in Sebastian County Circuit Court against a 29-year-old man arrested earlier this month in Memphis, Tenn., in a double homicide case.
Prosecutor Daniel Shue announced his office has charged Marcus Jerome Collins with two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated residential burglary in the July 26 shooting deaths of Brionna Belcher, 26, and Jonathan Harris, 43. The two were shot multiple times during a break-in at Belcher’s north Fort Smith apartment.
Collins also was charged with two counts of kidnapping. Authorities said he threatened at gunpoint two men who gave him and Neirod Marquis Medlock a ride to Belcher’s apartment.
Police records said Med-lock needed money to pay a ticket and he planned to rob someone to get it. Medlock was acquainted with Harris, police said.
Medlock, 19, was charged with the same offenses as Collins. He was arrested on a warrant in mid-August and has pleaded innocent to the charges in circuit court.
Collins was a fugitive who was arrested earlier this month in Memphis and returned to Fort Smith. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in circuit court in Fort Smith.