Woman’s remains recovered

Witnesses watch as victim is shot

— A body believed to be that of a 49-year-old woman killed Tuesday in Garland County has been found, authorities said Saturday.

The body was found in a creek about 50 feet off a logging road and about a mile from where Connie Ann Snow was killed, Lt. James Martin, a spokesman for the Garland County sheriff ’s office, said in a statement released to news organizations Saturday evening.

The body will be sent to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for identification and a determination of the cause of death, Martin said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked Martin to release no other information about the discovery, he said.

Randy Williams Gay, 52, of Jessieville, already twice convicted of second-degree murder in Arkansas, was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree murder in connectionwith Snow’s death after three witnesses told authorities that he shot a woman at close range and placed her body in a pickup Tuesday night. The names of the witnesses have not been released.

Snow’s death is being investigated by the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas office of the FBI with the assistance of the Garland County sheriff’s office.

According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by the state police, the incident began Tuesday evening when the witnesses told authorities that while they were working on some logging equipment in an area known as Six Mile Road, Gay drove his white pickup to within 20 feet of them.

They said they knew Gay’s truck because he had worked as a night watchman to protect their equipment and lived in a trailer on the U.S. Forest Service property.

Gay was speaking with the witnesses when a woman in the pickup, believed to be Snow, yelled to him, the affidavit said. The witnesses said Gay returned to the truck and an argument between Gay and the woman appeared to ensue.

They said they heard Gay tell the woman to get out of his truck, and when she did, he pulled a “bolt-action long gun with some type of muzzle adjuster” from the toolbox behind the truck’s cab, the affidavit said.

The witnesses said Gay walked around the back of the truck, stopping at the rear on the passenger side, and continued to argue with the woman before suddenly firing one shot. The woman fell to the ground, they said.

Gay then asked the witnesses for some plastic before securing their help to open the pickup’s tailgate, the affidavit said. Gay then dragged the woman’s body to the back of the truck, loaded it into the truck bed, closed the tailgate and drove off.

Gay later called one of the witnesses and asked, “Are we OK?” the affidavit said. The witness told police that Gay said something to the effect of, “It’s taken care of.” The witness then hung up on Gay and called the authorities.

Gay was arrested early Wednesday after state police troopers spotted his pickup outside a Mountain Pine apartment complex. The body of the woman was not in the truck.

Gay previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in an Aug. 12, 1978, death in Garland County, according to court records. Arkansas Department of Correction records show that he was also convicted of second-degree murder and felony firearm possession in Montgomery County in 1992 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

He was released from prison in November 2000 and released from parole in November 2001.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/16/2011

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