Little Rock police arrested a man on charges of first-degree murder hours after officers found three women fatally shot in a Little Rock home, a spokesman said.
Police officers responded Thursday afternoon to a call to check on the condition of a subject at 4601 W. 16th St. and found Torrence Deshawn Price, 42, of Pine Bluff lying in a pool of blood near a dead woman, according to an arrest report. Also inside the house were multiple children who police said were unharmed.
Officers entered the Little Rock residence, found two more dead women, and took a .40 caliber gun from Price before taking him into custody at approximately 2:15 p.m., the report said.
A witness identified Price as the shooter from a photo lineup, the report said.
Price faces three counts of first-degree murder and a charge of possession of a firearm by certain persons. He was in the Pulaski County jail Friday afternoon in lieu of a $3 million bond.
Police had not released the names of the three slain women by Friday afternoon. Police spokesman officer Eric Barnes said Little Rock District Court Judge Melanie Martin sealed the case, meaning little additional information about the motive or details of the homicides will be released.
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"That's part of the investigation that's being protected," Barnes said. "[Sealing the case] is in service of protecting the integrity of the investigation."
Asked whether the children who were in the house at the time of the shootings were returned to family members, or why the bodies had not yet been positively identified, Barnes said he did not know.
A 911 caller asked police to check on the occupants of the home after blood was seen dripping from the front door at approximately 2:04 p.m. In the arrest report, officers said that when they approached the house and saw blood pooling on the front porch, they looked through a window and saw Price and a woman lying in a pool of blood.
Less than an hour later, yellow tape barricaded the street surrounding the little white house at the corner of West 16th Street and Cone Lane. A white four-door truck was parked in the driveway.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified was sitting outside when police arrived, and she said she'd never seen the truck before. The neighbor said she knew the woman who lived next door fairly well. Sometimes the two would sit and talk, and the woman's two children sometimes played with the neighbor's grandchildren.
In fact, the neighbor said, the woman had come over around noon Thursday, and they had talked about painting the inside of her house.
The neighbor said she knew the vehicles that were often parked in front of thewoman's home, and the white truck wasn't one of them, she said.
Police did not say whether any of the dead women lived at the house where the bodies were found.
The neighbor said she was sitting on her patio watching her grandchildren play in the yard when a man walked out of the residence Thursday and got into the white truck. He drove away and made two trips around the block before parking at the West 16th Street house again, she said.
"I wondered what he was doing, but then just maybe a few minutes later the police showed up," the neighbor said. "I thought he went and got the police at first."
Officers walked back to the patrol car with the man between them, the neighbor said. The arrest report said Price had blood on his clothes, but the neighbor said that when she saw the man from her patio, she couldn't see any blood on him. Additional officers arrived and began to string yellow crime-scene tape around the house.
When officers walked away from the house a second time, they were carrying two young children, who were also bloodied, the neighbor said.
"I was worried for her," she said of the woman. "I prayed and prayed asking God for peace, and then this happened."
Gary Hogan, who owns a rental property across the street from 4601 W. 16th St., said police towed the truck away late Thursday afternoon.
Hogan said residents will find comfort from knowing that a suspect is in custody, but he still wants to know why the shootings happened.
"Knowing this much at least makes people in the neighborhood feel so much better," Hogan said.
Hogan said he and his rental company partner had discussed whether they should keep their houses in the area. The shooting Thursday was the second triple-homicide in the neighborhood in a year.
"You know, this is the Hope Neighborhood," Hogan said. "We want to stay here, because we believe this area can turn around. We want to see if there's hope."
Price has a long criminal history in Jefferson County. The county's circuit court has tried him on three charges of robbery, two charges of commercial burglary, a charge of residential burglary and multiple theft of property charges stretching back to 1995, when Price was 18, according to court records.
In 2012 in Pulaski County, Price was sentenced to 20 years in the Department of Correction on charges of breaking and entering, theft of property, possession of firearms by certain persons and theft by receiving, court documents said. He was arrested again in April on traffic charges.
Price also was tried in federal court on charges of possession of a firearm by certain persons in 2004 and sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation, court documents said.
He was married Aug. 9 in Pulaski County, but his wife filed for divorce Feb. 22. The divorce has not yet been finalized, according to court records.
The pool of blood beneath the front door of the West 16th Street residence had dried by Friday afternoon. An evidence marker sat beside the puddle, and officers guarded the yellow police line.
A few months before the shooting, the woman who lived in the house on the corner had a bad car wreck, the neighbor said.
"She told me, 'I almost died,'" the neighbor said. "'If you saw my car, you would wonder why I was even alive.'"
Metro on 06/15/2019