Little Rock man given 55-year sentence for 2018 shooting that left 3 dead

File photo
File photo

A 24-year-old Little Rock man charged in a November 2018 quadruple shooting that left three people dead has accepted a 55-year prison sentence.

Sentencing papers filed Friday show Joshua Milik Williams has pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder, each reduced from first-degree murder, for killing LaTija Luckey, 19, Carrington Williams, 19, and Kennelle Dewond Anderson, 20, about a week before Thanksgiving 2018.

Joshua Williams, identified as a suspect by police about two weeks after the slayings, was arrested in January 2019 in San Diego, where he'd been confronted by police for not paying a trolley fare, authorities said. Investigators said he appeared to have been living on the street there.

When Little Rock detectives questioned him in California he said he didn't know anything about the slayings and denied being in Arkansas when they occurred.

The victims were found in an overturned black 2018 Jeep Renegade in a drainage ditch in the 4400 block of West 14th Street. The Jeep's owner was dead while the two women died later in hospital. Anderson was from Hot Springs, and the two women were from Little Rock.

Police had been called to the street because a teenager, shot in both legs, had turned up at a house there looking for help.

Police said Braelyn Eskridge, then 17, had been shot eight times. Eskridge told investigators he'd been walking when two strangers ran up to him and started shooting, court filings show. Police found a blood trail from where Eskridge was found back to the crashed Jeep.

Inside the Jeep, police found a loaded 9mm pistol and ammo along with dozens of identification cards, Social Security cards and bank cards that did not belong to the victims, court filings show.

A witness told police he'd seen two men, one wearing a red hoodie with long hair and the other in a beige jacket with short hair, walking east on 14th Street. The two stopped to talk to someone in a black Jeep, then the long-haired man opened fire as the second man ran away.

Investigators also discovered the Jeep matched the description of a vehicle involved in the robbery of a woman at the Sunshine Mart, 3525 John Barrow Road, about an hour before the slayings.

Surveillance video shows Carrington Williams attacking the woman, Kalya Ramish Parham, as Luckey takes her purse before they run off. Parham, 26, was Joshua Williams' girlfriend, according to police.

In a subsequent interview, Parham told police the robbers had taken her purse, with her cellphone inside, so she called it to try to get it back, further stating she had been involved in a "financial fraud scam" with Anderson, one of the murder victims, court filings show.

Parham told police she met up with Anderson but he wanted more money than she had for her property back so she didn't get her purse back, identifying it as one found in the crashed Jeep.

When police attempted to question her about the killings, Parham initially declined to answer questions. She said she had not been in the area of the slayings, but investigators noted that the shoes she was wearing when she was robbed were found near the crime scene.

Parham told police her shoes had been taken during the robbery, but detectives noted she had not reported them stolen when she reported the holdup.

During a later round of questioning, Parham told investigators she'd been in the Jeep with the others while trying to get her purse and phone back, court filings show. Parham said she was trying to buy back her stolen purse and cellphone but Carrington Williams also wanted her gun back, a pistol Parham said she'd stolen from Carrington Williams about six weeks earlier, court records show.

Parham said her boyfriend had the gun, and Carrington Williams, using Parham's phone, called him to arrange to retrieve the weapon.

Parham described for police how the group in the Jeep met on a street corner with Joshua Williams and a second man with long hair. She said an argument broke out when Joshua Williams denied having the stolen gun, followed by gunshots from two weapons.

Parham said she saw Eskridge run from the Jeep then fall in front of a house as she got out of the vehicle and ran, leaving behind her shoes, according to court records. Parham said Joshua Williams later threatened to kill her if she talked about what she'd seen.

During police questioning, Eskridge, the shooting survivor, said Luckey had been his girlfriend and that together with the other victims had gone to the Sunshine Mart where the women had attacked a woman they had been "beefing with" over a stolen gun, taking the woman's purse and cellphone, court filings show.

The woman called to say she'd trade the gun for her purse and phone. Eskridge said his group picked up the woman and she directed them to her boyfriend, whom she said had the gun, court filings show.

When they met up with the man, who was with another man, an argument broke out and the other men started shooting, Eskridge told police, describing how he got out of the Jeep and ran. He identified Williams as one of the shooters but could not recognize photographs of any other suspected involved parties.

A first-degree battery charge against Williams, related to Eskridge, was dropped by prosecutors after Eskridge stopped cooperating with authorities, court files show.


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