After five years behind bars, a North Little Rock man linked to attacks on seven women is on his way to prison for 40 years for rape, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and terroristic threatening against four of the women.
Sentencing papers filed Friday show that David Lee Jones Jr., who turns 28 next month, dropped his legal challenges to the charges in exchange for the 40-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Jackson.
He pleaded no contest to the charges, which together carry a potential life sentence, after prosecutors dropped rape charges involving a fifth woman and terroristic threatening charges involving two more women. Johnson will have to serve 70% of his sentence — 28 years — before he can apply for parole and will have to register as a sex offender.
Friday marked the fifth anniversary of Jones’ arrest in June 2017, a day after North Little Rock police reported he ambushed a woman inside an abandoned house next door to his home on Virginia Drive. The 36-year-old woman was grabbed from behind; her assailant put a pistol to her head and threatened to kill her. But the woman was able to struggle from her assailant and run as the man shot at her.
The woman had gone to the house to meet a man for a sexual encounter arranged through Backpage.com. She left her backpack when she ran, and police later found it in Jones’ home. The woman came forward after hearing about Jones’ arrest and recognizing his picture.
The first attack police associated with Jones came about 2 a.m. April 11, 2017, when a 19-year-old woman reported she’d been robbed in the 4900 block of Allen Street while she was walking home from her Wendy’s restaurant shift and listening to music through headphones.
The assailant approached her from behind, grabbed her by her hair and put a gun to her head. The man threatened to kill her if she did not do what he told her. He stole her wallet and cellphone, after telling her to count down from 300 before leaving.
Five days later, a 38-year-old woman told police she was jogging on the Five Mile Creek Trail when she came upon a man who suddenly punched her, stuck a gun in her back and dragged her into the woods.
The assailant told her he’d kill her if she resisted but she grabbed him by the groin and squeezed as hard as she could, prompting him to release her. Someone else on the trail saw the man and was later able to identify Jones from a police photo lineup, according to police.
But Jones was not a suspect until after the June 2017 attack on a 33-year-old woman who was ambushed by a gunman hiding in the back seat of her car. She’d finished doing her laundry at the Fun Wash, 4804 John F. Kennedy Blvd., shortly before 5 p.m. when she got into her car.
The attacker, whose face was covered, forced her to drive somewhere and park, then made her perform oral sex, before stealing the $800 she had and her checkbook.
Police got Jones’ DNA from a pink shirt the woman used to wipe her mouth. The DNA also matched genetic material found on the clothes of the Wendy’s worker in April. During questioning, Jones admitted to assaults on the Wendy’s worker and the creek-trail jogger.
Jones also identified himself as the assailant of two women in March 2017, outside the now-closed Fox & Hound bar in the Lakewood Village shopping center on McCain Boulevard. Those charges were dropped, with at least one of the women moving out of state. They told investigators they’d been sitting in a car when a man came up, put something against the head of the driver and said he’d kill her if they didn’t cooperate. When one of the women opened the car door for the man to get in, they saw he had been using a bottle, not a gun, so they ran into the restaurant and called police.
Jones told police he’d had a consensual sexual encounter with a woman at a Lynn Lane home in August 2016 and that he’d stolen her phone. He identified the woman by name and the subsequent investigation led detectives to a woman with a similar name and features who said she’d been raped in August 2016, but had never reported it.
Those charges, which have been dropped, were based on the 24-year-old woman telling investigators that she’d been assaulted at an empty house at Lynn Lane and 44th Street where she’d gone for an arranged sexual encounter with a stranger.