Eric Hall Jr., the youngest of two people accused of killing a 10-year-old girl at Little Rock's Boyle Park, was jailed twice last year on accusations of shooting two acquaintances.
His home was twice shot up about that same time.
Hall, who turned 17 last month, and Ladarius Darnell Burnette, 18, of North Little Rock were named as suspects by police within hours of the late-afternoon shooting last Saturday that killed Ja'Aliyah Hughes and wounded a friend of her family, 22-year-old Kejuan Clifton McGill of North Little Rock, at a family gathering at the park.
Burnette surrendered to police last Sunday and Hall gave up on Monday. Both are jailed without bail while all reports related to their arrests have been sealed by court order.
Investigators have said that, if Hall is not a gang member, they know him to associate with people who are and have found social media photographs showing him making gang signs and posing with gang members holding assault rifles.
Police reports show Hall's home at 1604 Boyce St. in Little Rock's Hanger Hill neighborhood also was shot up twice in the space of about two months last year, the first time Jan. 7, when his 71-year-old grandmother was inside with two teenagers. No one was injured.
The gunfire occurred shortly after Hall was arrested on two counts of first-degree battery based on accusations that the night before he had shot Kierra Watson, 24, and Daevien Marbley, 21, at Westridge Place apartments, 420 Napa Valley Drive, where Marbley was a resident.
On Jan. 6, 2020, police found the seriously injured couple on the ground next to Watson's shot-up car. In the hospital, Marbley told investigators that he and Watkins had been sitting in her car when Hall, whom he only knew by the nickname Lil Chop, drove up in a vehicle with two men he did not know, according to an arrest affidavit.
Hall got in the back of the car with them and smoked marijuana, Marbley said. But Hall's presence started to make the couple feel uncomfortable as they feared he wanted to rob them, the man told police. Marbley said he got out of the car, hoping that Hall would follow him and move away from Watson.
Marbley said Hall exited but began shooting at him with a pistol. Marbley said he fell to the ground as Hall turned the gun on Watson in the car, according to the affidavit. Hall then got back into the vehicle he had arrived in and left, Marbley said.
Hall was arrested after the couple identified him from a police photographic lineup. Two days later, Hall was recorded on a jail phone call discussing with a friend where he had hidden the gun behind his home, and police found the pistol where he had said it was, according to police reports.
His bail was set at $750,000, and Hall spent the next four months in jail until his lawyers persuaded Circuit Judge Barry Sims to reduce that amount to $150,000, which he posted after a week.
By then, his home had been shot up again. Police reports show that around lunchtime Feb. 27, 2020, a gunman opened fire on the home while his grandmother, Rose Simmons, and a teenager were inside. A freezer in the residence was hit by a bullet, but no one was injured. Police arrested a man, 21-year-old Calvin Antwone Dilworth of Little Rock, on charges related to the gunfire.
According to arrest reports, investigators found surveillance video from a neighboring residence that showed Dilworth knocked on the front door then walked to the back of the residence. The recording then shows Dilworth running from the house and getting into a silver Kia Soul that drove off.
Police stopped a car matching that description at 1000 S. Welch St. and detained Dilworth and the other two occupants, 22-year-old Kavadous Romondae Starr of Little Rock and Lynnsey Webb, 22, of Lonoke for questioning before charging Dilworth with committing a terroristic act, a Class B felony that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
Starr and Webb were released. Dilworth has been jailed ever since with his bail set at $50,000.
About a month after Hall was released, prosecutors petitioned the judge to order his arrest, reporting that Hall had threatened one of the shooting victims in a post on the photograph-sharing social media service Instagram.
Once the judge approved the arrest warrant, it took Little Rock police about seven weeks to catch up with Hall, and he spent another three weeks in jail until an August bond hearing, when the judge set his bail at $100,000 and Hall was released the same day.
Deputy prosecutor Jayme Butts-Hall called on the judge to set his bail at $750,000, presenting other photos from Hall's Instagram account that police said showed him with known members of the Bloods sects from the Hangar Hill and Monroe Street neighborhoods.
The men with Hall, some unknown to police, hold guns in the social media post, including a Blackout assault rifle, while Hall displays large amounts of cash. According to testimony, Hall regularly associates with Hanger Hill gang members but police can't say for sure he is a member.
A Facebook friend of Hall's posted a copy of Marbley's statement to police on the social media site. There are only three known copies of that statement -- one with police, one with prosecutors and one with Hall -- Butts-Hall told the judge. She said Marbley also has received threats by telephone, although she acknowledged that authorities could not directly connect Hall to the threats.
Hall's attorney, Bill James,scoffed at the accusation the Instagram post, written on the account of user lildirtye, contained a threat. The post includes a racial slur, stating "hoe n---a told on me should've died," which is a lyric from a song. He said prosecutors had no proof that the victims had seen the post or that the message had been sent to them and called police efforts to tie Hall to street gangs "weak."
James said authorities can't prove when the Instagram photographs were taken and have no evidence that Hall had anything to do with posting the statement on Facebook. He suggested the statement could have been stolen from Hall while he was in jail.