CONWAY — A judge ruled Tuesday that a Pine Bluff man accused of kidnapping and murdering a Wooster woman is mentally fit to proceed to trial.
Circuit Judge Troy Braswell ruled in the Faulkner County case of Tacori Mackrell, 19. Mackrell and his cousin, Robert Smith III, 17, also of Pine Bluff, are charged with capital murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and theft of property in the July slaying of Elvia Fragstein, 72.
Authorities have said the defendants kidnapped Fragstein outside a Conway shopping center. She died from strangulation and blunt-force trauma.
Braswell set Mackrell’s trial to begin Sept. 30.
Braswell already had found Smith mentally fit to stand trial.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.