NORTH LITTLE ROCK -- A North Little Rock woman received a 12-year prison sentence for child endangerment related to the January 2020 slaying of her boyfriend who died after a fight with her and two of her sons.
Sentencing papers filed Monday show Shamirra Nechelle Hudspeth, 43, pleaded guilty to first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor -- for putting "her children in a dangerous situation, which resulted in the death of an adult victim" -- in exchange for the 12-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.
The charge is a Class D felony, and 12 years is the maximum sentence available for a repeat offender like Hudspeth.
Under the plea agreement negotiated by attorney Steven Smith and deputy prosecutor Tracye Mosley, prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge in the death of 42-year-old Wade Williams Jr., a married father of four.
Hudspeth's son, 18-year-old Wilson Antonio Morris, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in August in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence, the maximum available for the Class C felony. Her second son, who was 15, was prosecuted in juvenile court. A third son, age 9, was also in the apartment.
According to police reports, officers found Williams lying unconscious and bleeding from his head on a sidewalk by some stairs at The Bluffs apartments at 5025 Velvet Ridge, after being called to the scene about an injured man on the ground. Williams died at the hospital about 30 minutes later from blunt-force head injuries.
LC Davis, 55, a friend of Williams, said he'd driven Williams to the apartments to get Williams' wallet from a residence there. Davis told police that he saw a woman and two young men assaulting Williams as Williams tried to get away from them.
Police followed a trail of blood droplets from where Williams was lying upstairs to an apartment where they found Hudspeth and her younger son.
At the apartment, leased by Hudspeth's mother, 63-year-old Vanessa Jackson, investigators found a drop of blood on the floor just inside the front door and a blood smear on the back of the door.
In an interview with detectives, Hudspeth said Williams had attacked her in her sleep the night before, choking her so hard she couldn't breath and she almost passed out. Hudspeth said she didn't know why Williams had attacked her because they hadn't quarrelled. She said he left soon after.
Williams later called her to say he had left his wallet at her place and was going to retrieve it, Hudspeth told detectives. She said when he got to the apartment Williams shoved her, so she and her two sons began fighting him, getting him out of the apartment and to the stairs as Williams struggled with them.
Her younger son denied being involved in the fight, but Morris described how all three went to fight Williams, saying once they got to the bottom of the stairs he punched Williams and knocked him to the ground. Morris said Williams started to snore so he knew the older man was unconscious. Morris said he took his mother's apartment key from Williams then left before police arrived. He said he was the only one to strike Williams.
Court records show that Hudspeth, a mother of 10, was on probation at the time for convictions for robbery, second-degree battery and failure to appear in court.