The two people found dead in a west Little Rock home on Monday night were a married couple -- both officials at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences -- who were in the midst of a divorce, police and court records show.
Little Rock police officers arrived at 56 Epernay Circle shortly before 7:30 p.m. following a report of a shooting and found Stacy and Nathan Petty, both 45, dead, according to an incident report.
The report came from the couple's stepchild, the report states. Police determined that Nathan Petty shot himself, it states.
Nathan Petty was director of research and compliance at UAMS, university spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said.
Stacy Petty was an advanced practice registered nurse and director of UAMS' virtual urgent care clinic, HealthNow, Taylor said.
A biography on the website for UAMS' Institute for Digital Health & Innovation, credits Stacy Petty with organizing "the statewide telemedicine response to COVID-19 through HealthNow."
"Overnight, the HealthNow platform, which launched only two months before, went from zero monthly COVID-19 screenings to at its most over 600," the biography says.
"Stacy readily took on this new, challenging program and worked diligently to get it going, from tirelessly developing every protocol to communicating user-friendly advice to IT, ensuring a seamless video experience for patients."
It says the telemedicine platform saved patients from having to visit the emergency room in person, reduced the amount of time patients had to take off work and protected patients from covid-19 and other infectious diseases that they could contact by visiting a clinic.
Stacy Petty also "continually volunteered at employee and patient temperature screening stations at UAMS entry points while also managing her team and the HealthNow budget, seeing patients virtually, kicking off a new HIV prevention program, writing and submitting her first grant proposal, working collaboratively with other areas of campus and other entities across the state, and filling her personal roles as wife and mother," the biography says.
Stacy Petty filed for a divorce from her husband on April 12, court documents show.
The two were married July 1, 2018, the complaint states, although a counterclaim from Nathan Petty lists the date of the wedding as Nov. 1, 2018.
The case was set to go to a final hearing Feb. 9, but a judge dismissed the case Tuesday morning, court records show.
The couple had not lived together since April 1, the complaint states. 56 Epernay Circle is Nathan Petty's listed address in the police report, while Stacy Petty's listed address is about two miles away in Little Rock.
On Sept. 6, Stacy Petty's attorney filed a motion to compel Nathan Petty and his attorney to respond to questions and requests for documents filed on May 9, records show.
An Aug. 23 response to the original request filed by Nathan Petty's attorney stated that the two had attempted to reconcile after the divorce proceedings began, resulting in a delay.
Information for this article was contributed by Remington Miller of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.