A 38-year-old woman faces a charge of first-degree murder, the Baxter County sheriff’s office said Sunday.
Deputies arrested Kristy Shay Leedham-Johnston following an investigation into the death of a man who had been shot Saturday.
The investigation began shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday, when a caller asked the sheriff’s office to send a deputy to an address on Baxter County Road 672 to speak to a man about having someone removed from a house at a different location, authorities said. The caller told the deputy that a man had been “hanging around” his daughter, whom he identified as Leedham-Johnston, for the past couple of days, the sheriff’s office said. He said his daughter had been “acting up” and he requested a welfare check on her at a residence on Old Arkana Road, according to the sheriff’s office.
Two deputies went to the Old Arkana Road address. When they arrived and approached the front door, the deputies said they found the body of a man laying partially outside of the open threshold of the doorway.
Deputies then went to the rear of the house and found Leedham-Johnston outside, peeking into the residence through the back door. Deputies called to her. She immediately raised her hands and stated, “He’s a really bad guy. I did what I had to do to get away,” according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office identified the dead man as 48-year-old Mark Dennis Mucha of Mountain Home. Investigators found a handgun and knife on the premises.