HELENA-WEST HELENA — Four Phillips County men were each sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for participating in a July 2011 shooting that left a 26-year-old woman dead and three children wounded.

Eddie Richardson, Justin Brown, Clinton Ward and Cedric Mitchell stood in a semicircle facing Phillips County Circuit Judge Richard Proctor during an afternoon hearing as they one by one entered guilty pleas to charges of seconddegree murder and first-degree battery.

The four men, who were charged as accomplices, entered their pleas as part of an agreement with prosecutors that recommended the 20-year sentence on the murder charge and a fiveyear concurrent sentence on the battery charge.

In exchange, Phillips County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Todd Murray reduced the murder charge from first-degree and dropped two first-degree battery charges against each of the men.

The pleas came more than a year and a half after the shooting left Crystal Rattler dead and two 7-year-olds and a 10-year-old wounded, court records show. The children survived.

According to court documents, Helena-West Helena police were led to arrest the four men after they found 9mm and 7.62x39mm shell casings near 918 Ohio St., the house where Rattler and the three children were shot on the front porch.

While they were collecting evidence at the house on Ohio Street, police received another report of gunfire at 709 Walker St. There they found more 7.62x39mm shell casings as well as a plastic bag containing the same caliber of live ammunition, which is commonly associated with AK-47 rifles.

Police also found a van belonging to Mitchell’s mother.

The van had bullet holes in it, and inside was a 9mm Taurus handgun, according to court records.

In a later interview with police, Mitchell, 23, admitted to driving Brown, 21, Richardson, 23, and Ward, 20, to an alley behind a house on Ohio Street.

When they pulled up, “Mitchell stated that they all had weapons with them,” court records state. He also admitted to driving the others from the scene after the shooting.

Richardson and Ward made similar statements. Both “admitted to shooting guns in the 900 block of the alley between Ohio and Cherry streets” near the home where Rattler and the children were shot, court records show.

Court documents don’t specify which of the men fired the bullets that struck Rattler and the children, but Murray summarized the men’s involvement during the hearing Monday, which came a day after Rattler would have turned 28.

“Each defendant on July 4, 2011, unlawfully and knowingly caused the death of Crystal Rattler,” he said.

In response, P roctor then ordered the men to be transported to the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 10 on 02/09/2013