Law enforcement in Pulaski County investigated the deaths of eight people as homicides in August, authorities reported, resulting in a toll that was tied with those reported in February and May.
August was on track to tie with January and July for the lowest number of homicides in a single month of 2022, but late Friday night North Little Rock police announced that they suspected foul play in a woman's suspicious death on Aug. 31.
As usual, most of the killings last month were the result of shootings, including three near the middle of the month that were connected to a string of shootings, mostly on roads in and around Little Rock, over a Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
Little Rock police handled half of the homicide investigations while Pulaski County deputies and North Little Rock police each investigated two killings. It was the first month since March where the majority of homicides were not in Little Rock police's jurisdiction.
Around 8:30 on the morning of Aug. 1, a woman called Little Rock police saying she had returned home to find her husband lying in the driveway with blood coming from his mouth, according to a police report.
Police arrived at 10124 Whispering Pines and found Daniel Felton, 65, of South Madison, Miss., in the driveway with a gunshot wound that proved to be fatal.
Officers canvassed the scene but did not arrest anyone in the killing until Aug. 5, when 18-year-old Markistan Gines was arrested and charged with capital murder.
Authorities have not released any details of the shooting or what may have led to it. Gines was held Saturday in the Pulaski County jail on no bond, according to an online inmate roster.
The same day as Felton was shot dead, police responding to a report of an assault in progress at 15 Lombardy Lane around noon found the body of Cathy Smith, 71.
Logan Smith, her stepson and son of former 6th Judicial Circuit Judge Vann Smith, was arrested later in the day and charged with first-degree murder in the killing. He was held in the Pulaski County jail Saturday on a bond of $1 million, the inmate roster showed.
Cathy Smith's exact cause of death has not been released, and no information was released about what might have led to the murder.
The day after, Aug. 2, Pulaski County deputies were on the scene at 13024 Arkansas 365, an apartment complex in Wrightsville, where Raymond Pippins, 63, was found fatally shot.
Deputies arrested Brian Tenpenny, 43, of Hensley, not long after the shooting. He is charged with capital murder and was held Saturday in the Pulaski County jail on no bond, the roster showed.
On Aug. 5, North Little Rock police arrived at the apartments at 605 West Scenic Drive around 12:30 p.m. and located Jaylen Talley, 21, of North Little Rock shot outside one of the buildings in the complex. He was taken to an area hospital, where he died of his wounds.
Police arrested and charged Jaydin Alford, 18, in the killing on Aug. 5. He was held in the Pulaski County jail Saturday on a first-degree murder count with $500,000 bond, the inmate roster showed.
No further information about the circumstances of the shooting was released.
The next three homicides came as part of a string of 17 shootings on Aug. 13 and 14, investigated jointly by Little Rock police, Pulaski County deputies and Arkansas State Police. Most of the shooting incidents happened on roads in Little Rock or on interstates, with a suspect firing at other motorists from a vehicle.
Around 7 p.m. Aug. 13, Little Rock police responded to a report of a person shot in their vehicle at an intersection near 900 South Rodney Parham Road.
Glean Finley, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the vehicle was uninjured.
No further information has been released in the shooting, which followed a number of non-fatal shooting incidents earlier in the day, police from the three agencies said.
The next day, just before 1 p.m., Pulaski County deputies arrived at Frazier Pike and 3M Road in College Station to find Dwayne Thompson, 58, shot dead, in the first of multiple shooting incidents that day.
No more information was released about the circumstances of Thompson's shooting.
The next killing came a little after 5 p.m. on Aug. 14, when someone entered a Valero convenience store at 6500 Mabelvale Cut Off and fatally shot 20-year-old Brandon Mackintrush, also wounding 46-year-old Alexis Oliver, police said.
The killing at the gas station was the last shooting incident reportedly connected to the string of violence, police said. Three other people were injured in the rash of roadway shootings.
Less than an hour after the Valero shooting, state troopers arrested Davis Lamont Jones, Jr., 31, who has been charged in the last killing and one of the roadway shootings.
However, police have yet to charge anyone in the other two homicides that happened that weekend or in the majority of the roadway shootings.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler said that the three agencies were working to present a unified case file covering the other incidents to Prosecutor Larry Jegley with the Sixth Judicial District, but that was still awaiting further forensic analyses as of Friday, he said.
Finally, North Little Rock police on Aug. 31 arrived at 2308 North Schaer Street around 10 p.m. to investigate the death of Matilda Howard, 69, which had been deemed suspicious.
After two days, police announced that the investigation had been upgraded to a homicide, making Howard the eighth victim in August. Police declined to release a cause of death in the case, saying that detail was relevant to the investigation.
A majority of the August homicide victims were older than 35, the average age of homicide victims in 2022 so far, data showed.
So far in 2022, Little Rock police have investigated the homicide deaths of 51 people in 47 separate incidents, North Little Rock had investigated 12 homicides, Pulaski County deputies eight and Jacksonville police two, records showed.
As of Saturday, no homicides had been reported in September.
This map shows the location of the homicides in Pulaski County in August 2022. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)