A Mountain View man was charged Thursday in the April shooting deaths of four people, two of whom were his parents, authorities say.
Donnie Trammell, 54, faces four first-degree murder charges related to the Stone County killings, which local authorities and Arkansas State Police began investigating on April 21.
At around 2 p.m. that day, a woman and her son, 77-year-old Shirley Watters and 55-year-old James Watters, were found dead in their home by a family member, state police said. The home is located at 646 Northcutt Road, about 12 miles southeast of Mountain View.
About eight hours later, agents were called to another crime scene, located at 5474 Arkansas 5, about a mile's drive north of 646 Northcutt Road. The bodies of William Clinton Trammell, 75, and his wife, Sharon, 72, were found with apparent gunshot wounds, state police said.
Donnie Trammell is the son of William and Sharon Trammell, according to Chief Deputy Dammon McGilton with the Stone County sheriff's office. McGilton made the comment in a Thursday press conference that was streamed to Facebook Live.
Donnie Trammell's relationship to the Watters family was unclear, and McGilton said no futher information would be released
McGilton said that Donnie Trammell had been in the Stone County jail since April 22, the day after the killings, on unrelated probation charges. He appeared Friday afternoon on the jail's online inmate roster, with his bail set at $4 million.
McGilton thanked the other agencies, like Arkansas State Police, that helped the county investigate the four murders.
“Our communities took a lick on this,” McGilton said.
In addition to the murder charges, Trammell faces charges of possession of a firearm by a certain person, theft of a firearm, two counts of aggravated residential burglary and possession of moonshine.