A Boone County man is expected to be charged with capital murder in Circuit Court today in the deaths of a husband and wife, Boone County Sheriff Danny Hickman said Thursday.
Investigators believe William Curtis Krohn, 55, used a small handgun to shoot Christine Ann Pryor, 57, and her husband, William Eugene Pryor, 56, in a dispute.
Police were contacted at 5:55 p.m. Wednesday.
“He was arrested pretty quickly,” Hickman said. “The officers arrived at the scene, and he was there.”
The couple was killed in the living room of their trailer at 19001 Old Lowery Road near Omaha, the sheriff said. Their bodies have been sent to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock. Krohn lived in one of two other trailers on the property.
Deputy prosecutor Wes Bradford, who met with Hickman and others at the sheriff ’s office Thursday afternoon, said the dispute between Krohn and the victims was about money. The Pryors supposedly drank beer, ate food and refused to pay for what they consumed, Bradford said.
“This was something that has been building up over aperiod of time,” Bradford said.
Hickman wouldn’t say how many shots were fired, and investigators aren’t certain yet which one of several handguns Krohn used. The crime lab’s work will help sort out some of those details, the sheriff said.
Shirley Daniel, who lives about a quarter-mile from the trailer where the Pryors lived, said her son was in a garage when he heard three gunshots around 4 p.m. Wednesday. He assumed the shots came from another neighbor’s property across the Missouri state line wherefiring guns for target practice is common.
“He thought nothing of it,” she said.
Later, they figured out the gunfire came from the Pryor property.
“They hang around and they drink like all the people do anymore except for us up here on the corner,” Daniel said. “I think William and his wife [Ann] moved in and it was more than Bill could handle. It got to be too much.
“I can’t believe this has happened. It’s unbelievable. Bill was the one who’d break up the fights down there.”
Other neighbors didn’t know the people in the three trailers well, but they were familiar with the loud, latenight music.
“Sometimes we can’t hear even in our living room,” said Don Beevers, who has lived adjacent to the Pryor property for five years. “They used to beat on the drums until 3 or 4 in the morning.
“I called the sheriff, wrote them letters and wrote the sheriff letters. I was tired of it. Now, the music doesn’t go past 10 o’clock, but it’s always loud over there.”
Bradford said Krohn’s first appearance and arraignment today will be in front of Circuit Judge Gordon Webb. In addition to the capital murder charges, Krohn is expected to be charged with aggravated residential burglary, Bradford said.
Krohn was being held without bond Thursday at the Boone County jail.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/30/2010