SPRINGDALE — A Springdale woman missing since 2008 was killed in her trailer at Whisler Mobile Home Park, then put in her car and dumped in Beaver Lake, according to police.
Police have identified two people connected with the suspected homicide.
A jailhouse informant told police in September he had been told by Keisha Annette Ward, 27, she hit Kelly Denise Lockhart over the head with a rock inside Lockhart’s trailer at 1012 Spruce St., according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Washington County Circuit Court from Detective Michael Hendrix of the Springdale Police Department.
Ward’s boyfriend, Jeffrey A. Clark, 30, then strangled Lockhart, the affidavit states.
Neither Ward nor Clark has been charged with a crime. Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet said Tuesday he is awaiting the outcome of the investigation before making a decision regarding charges.
Lockhart’s body was left on the floor of the mobile home for two days before being placed in her sport-utility vehicle, which was then pushed into Beaver Lake near the White River Bridge on U.S. 412, according to the affidavit.
Police pulled the vehicle from the lake Oct. 15. A body was found inside, but it hasn’t been identified as Lockhart’s.
Lockhart, 47 at the time, was reported missing April 9, 2008, by her stepmother. Hannah Lockhart had become concerned because she had not seen Lockhart since Feb. 7, 2008, and she’d found two months of mail at Lockhart’s trailer, including Social Security checks that represented Lockhart’s only source of income, according to the missing person report.
The informant told police Ward shared with him what happened to Lockhart. Detectives interviewed Ward, whose responses linked her to the crime, according to the affidavit.
Police obtained two search warrants in early October, one for Lockhart’s trailer and another for a storage shed at the home of Clark’s mother, according to an affidavit.
Police took a cell phone, a VHS tape, a sack of letters, a key ring and several disposable cameras from an outbuilding where Ward had stored items for the last two years, according to a search warrant receipt.
Ward had been to the Holiday Road home east of Springdale on Oct. 12 wanting to look for a letter in the shed, but didn’t get access, the affidavit states.
Ward allegedly said the letter had very important writing on it and she needed to find it before anyone else did, according to the affidavit.
Police searched Lockhart’s trailer Oct. 18, leaving with four floorboards recovered from under the residence and insulation from under the front porch, according to records. Lockhart lived there for about eight years, according to county property records. The trailer was sold about a year after Lockhart’s disappearance.
Clark has been in police custody since February 2009 on unrelated charges. He’s serving a 20-year prison term at the Arkansas Department of Correction for burglary, theft, arson and drug charges, according to the department website. The site lists him as a habitual offender, with prior forgery and drug charges.
Ward was arrested twice in 2008 on drug-related charges, records show. She was kicked out of Washington County drug court in March 2009 after being arrested again with methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. She spent 10 months in the state Department of Community Correction before being released Jan. 26 and is on parole until 2012, according to department officials.
Police would not discuss Ward’s whereabouts Tuesday.