A 24-year-old Little Rock man has accepted an eight-year prison sentence for shooting up the Little Rock home of a man later involved in the 2021 slaying of a 10-year-old girl at a city park.
Sentencing papers filed last week show Calvin Antwone Dilworth, a first-time offender, pleaded guilty to committing a terroristic act in exchange for the eight-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Karen Whatley. The Class B felony carries up to 20 years in prison.
Under the conditions of his plea agreement, negotiated by deputy prosecutor Justin Brown and defense attorney Darrell Brown, a misdemeanor charge of carrying a weapon was dropped.
Dilworth was arrested about an hour after someone stuck a gun through a front window at 1604 Boyce St. and opened fire in February 2020. He's been jailed since.
The only people home were the owner, Rose Simmons, and her 15-year-old grandson. Neither was injured, although Simmons, now 73, saw the gunman's hand when he stuck the pistol through the living-room window on the north side of the 82-year-old, 912-square-foot home in the Garden Addition, according to court records.
Police descended on the scene to look for clues, tipped off that a silver "cube-style" car that had been circling the block might have been involved, court filings show. Surveillance video from a neighbor showed a man in a black sweater and light-colored jeans running from the house and jumping a chain link fence on the south side.
A patrol officer stopped a silver Kia Soul in the vicinity, but no one matching the description of the fleeing man was in the vehicle, so the car was released.
But further review of the video showed more details of a car fleeing the scene, a silver Kia Soul with slight front-end damage, a yellow object hanging in the rear-view mirror and the license plate, which turned out to be the car that had been stopped and released, court filings show.
The video shows the Kia stop at the Boyce Street home. Someone in the car gets out and goes and appears to knock on the front door and then walks to the back of the residence before returning to the car, which drives around the corner and parks before a man gets out of the passenger side.
The Kia then drives around the block to the corner of 16th and Boyce and parks again. Moments later, a man can be seen running from the north side of the Boyce Street home, then jumping a fence while running toward 16th Street. The Kia then heads west toward Security Avenue.
Police tracked down the car a second time, stopping it near 8th and Welch streets. Dilworth was found in the car along with two other adults, Kavadous Starr, 24, and 23-year-old Lynnsey Webb, along with Webb's 9-month-old son, court records show.
In the car, police found a .45 caliber pistol missing its magazine under the front passenger seat near the back passenger seat where Dilworth was sitting.
During questioning, Dilworth told police he had gone to "Chop's house" on Boyce Street to buy marijuana, stating that he had knocked on the front door, side window and Chop's bedroom window but got no answer, court records show. Dilworth said he ran when he saw a dog, telling police that he never had a gun and did not shoot at anyone.
Webb, the car's owner, said Starr, the driver, was her boyfriend and Dilworth was Starr's friend, stating she only knew Dilworth by the nickname "Lil Cow".
She told investigators Lil Cow was the only one to get out of the car, first to knock on the door of the Boyce Street home and then a second time after the car had driven around the corner, according to court records. She further told police that Lil Cow had changed his clothes in the Kia before police stopped them the first time.
Court records show the Boyce Street home was also the residence of another of Simmons' grandsons, 19-year-old Eric "Chop" Hall, who now is serving a 17 1/2-year prison sentence for his role in the March 2021 shooting at Boyle Park that killed 10-year-old Ja'Aliyah Hughes of Little Rock, plus the January 2020 shooting that wounded a couple, Kierra Watson and Daevien Marbley, at the Westridge Place apartments, 420 Napa Valley.
Another man, Ladarius Darnell Burnett, 19, pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder for killing the girl. He was sentenced to 35 years, a sentence that will keep him behind bars until he is at least 42.
Hall pleaded guilty in May to first-degree battery and aggravated assault for shooting Kejuan Clifton McGill of North Little Rock, who was at the park attending a party with the girl. Hall will have to serve about seven years before he can apply for parole.