Officers found a 72-year-old man Monday evening who had been shot and killed in his home, a North Little Rock police spokesman said. Neighbors said they hadn't seen the man for several days.
North Little Rock police drove to 322 E. Emily St. for a welfare check and found O.C. Winston dead from a gunshot wound, police spokesman Sgt. Amy Cooper said.
The call to check on Winston came in about 7:55 p.m., Cooper said. A welfare check is when a family member, friend or neighbor asks police to look in on a person if that person has been out of touch, if something seems amiss around the house or if the caller fears something has happened.
Cooper said the nature of the original call was a part of the ongoing investigation. She confirmed that Winston had been shot and that his death is being investigated as a homicide.
Further details were not immediately released.
Neighbor Joyce Brewer said she counted 13 police cars at Winston's one-story house Monday evening. Officers strung yellow tape across the home, which Winston bought in 2001, according to Pulaski County property records.
There were no plants or bushes around the house, but several stools and chairs sat inside the carport where Joyce Brewer's husband, Jesse, said he'd seen Winston sitting on Saturday afternoon.
Winston was the kind of person who always waved and spoke to his neighbors when he saw them outside, Jesse Brewer said.
Down the street, Stella Gibson said she heard Winston's truck go by every Sunday when he was on his way to church.
"I loved his truck," she said. "If we were outside, he'd honk, but if we weren't we could still hear him go by. Maybe he taught Sunday School. He was leaving out of here every Sunday in a hurry."
But she didn't hear Winston go by last Sunday, she said.
Winston's family gathered on one side of the police tape Monday night, Joyce Brewer said. Neighbors and onlookers were on the other.
"The family, they said they'd been calling him and calling him and couldn't get him to answer," Jesse Brewer said, when asked if he knew anything about what had caused the shooting. "But we don't know. We don't know what happened."
Winston's death was the ninth homicide in North Little Rock in 2019, and his body was found just two days after 44-year-old David Ayala of New Jersey was killed in the 200 block of North Clark Street early Saturday. Cooper said in an initial release that Ayala had suffered "obvious trauma" and that officers found him lying in the street while responding to a call about a disturbance.
Investigators are asking anyone with information about either homicide to contact the department at (501) 680-8439.
Metro on 08/21/2019