MISDEMEANOR CHARGES: Mother Pleads Guilty

BROTHER, SISTER DIED IN HOT CAR TRUNK WHILE MOM WAS HOME

— A Springdale woman pleaded guilty Monday to two charges stemming from the deaths of her two children.

Katrina Markley, 25, was charged with two counts of third-degree endangering the welfare of a minor, a misdemeanor. She was sentenced to six months of work-release service and fined $2,000 by Washington County Circuit Judge William Storey.

Markley is scheduled to report to the Washington County Jail on Friday to begin serving her sentence, which involves supervised community service activities during the day and nights spent in a barracks-style building at the jail.

Curtis Markley, 5, and Virginia Markley, 4, were found in the trunk of Katrina Markley's car on June 15, 2009, dead of apparent heatstroke.

Katrina Markley told Springdale police Detective Matt Ray the children went to a neighbor's house about 1 p.m. that afternoon, then to another neighbor's about 3 p.m., according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Both neighbors, however, said the two hadn't been at their houses. Other neighbors said Curtis and Virginia were outside, unsupervised, for most of the afternoon.

At some point, they apparently crawled into the trunk of the 2000 Chevy Malibu and shut the lid. The car wasn't equipped with a safety release inside the trunk.

Katrina Markley called police about 4 p.m. to report them missing. By the time police arrived, the children's grandmother had found Curtis and Virginia unresponsive in the trunk.

Markley later admitted to police that she was on the computer most of the day, according to an arrest affidavit. That was confirmed by a witness who was chatting online with Katrina Markley that afternoon, according to police.

Christopher Markley, the children's' father, was out of town on business at the time.

Katrina Markley pleaded guilty to the charges in Springdale District Court in April, but her attorney appealed the terms of the plea agreement to Circuit Court.

District Judge Stanley Ludwig refused to place the case in a first-offender program that would have wiped the conviction off Markley's criminal record once she completed her sentence.

The District Court plea agreement called for six months jail time. However, the city doesn't have a contract with Washington County to house misdemeanor prisoners, and holding even one female in the city jail means losing a third of the 12-bed capacity because male and female prisoners must be housed separately. Ludwig refused to allow home monitoring instead of jail time.

Those sentenced in Circuit Court, even on misdemeanor charges, can be held in the county jail.

The sentence and fine are the maximum allowed for the charges, said Jeff Harper, Springdale city attorney.

Upcoming Events