A 39-year-old Little Rock man who claimed he had been acting in self-defense was convicted of first-degree murder Thursday night for killing a man in a dispute over a $30 debt.
Anthony Donnell Toombs did not testify at his two-day trial before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson but had told Little Rock detectives he had fired blindly at 42-year-old Eddie Maurice “Emo” Larkin during a latenight altercation in August at a South Brown Street home. Police found Larkin shot dead on the porch of the home and arrested Toombs a week later.
A jury deliberated about 75 minutes before deciding to convict Toombs on all charges, including felon in possession of a firearm. He will have to serve at least 35 years before qualifying for parole.
Prosecutors and the defense disagreed on the natureof the debt and the killing.
Defense attorney Julie Jackson told the seven men and five women on the jury that Toombs was a “workingman” with a good job as a city Public Works employee who had loaned Larkin the money to buy food but needed to be repaid. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting and no evidence that Toombs had deliberately killed Larkin, who had been at the residence using PCP and cocaine the night he was killed, Jackson said.
The house was a drug den, she said, and authorities had built their case on the statements of Larkin’s friends where Toombs was considered an “outsider.”
“[Toombs] was doing the right thing, and the people in that drug house were not doing the right thing,” she said.
Jackson’s argument drew a skeptical retort from deputy prosecutor Hugh Finkelstein, who reminded jurors that Toombs was an admitted felonwho fled the scene and hid the murder weapon.
“He was doing everything right? When does being a felon in possession of a firearm constitute right behavior?” he asked. “When does destroying evidence constitute right behavior?”
During the trial, prosecutors called on three witnesses, each a convicted felon, who had incriminated Toombs in statements to police - Corey Wright, 32, Leifel Gentry Hudspeth, 31, and Moran Ellis, 34 - but on the witness stand claimed not to remember what had happened or changed their accounts of what they’d seen.
Finkelstein questioned Ellis for almost three hours Thursday, and he first denied any recollection of telling police he’d seen the men arguing. Then he said he could recall some of what happened but recanted his statement that he had seen Toombs with a gun. Confronted by the prosecutorwith transcripts of the two interviews he gave to detectives within a day of the slaying, Ellis began to complain about having to testify.
“I told you I didn’t remember because I don’t want to be here,” Ellis said, complaining that Finkelstein was “trying to run a game on me.”
“I don’t have any information for you, sir. Could you please let me go?” Ellis said.
Ellis then began to deride his police statements as unreliable, saying he had been using “sherm,” a slang term for PCP, the night of the slaying. He also said he gave police a story because he thought they were trying to pin a murder on him.
“Sounds like somebody high to me,” he said after reading one passage. “I was saying all of this because I thought they were going to charge me.”
Pressed by the prosecutor, Ellis also said he was angry because authorities had refusedto “help” him with his pending charges of aggravated robbery and kidnapping.
In closing arguments, the prosecutor apologized for the witnesses, saying they’d changed their stories out of fear of being labeled informants or because they feared ending up dead like Larkin.
“They are not nice people. We don’t get to choose our witnesses. I wish [Larkin] was shot in a better place than that [house] … a Baptist church, a Rotary meeting … a place where they weren’t doing drugs,” Finkelstein said. “He chose his friends poorly.They don’t want to end up like that, so they abandoned their friend.”
The victim was “not doing right” when he was killed, “but his life was worth way more than $30,” he said.
Key evidence for prosecutors was the fatal head wound that likely killed Larkin instantly. Finkelstein asked jurors to consider how the 5-foot7-inch Toombs was able to shoot the 6-foot 2-inch Larkin near the top part of the back of his head. For the killing to be considered self-defense, the prosecutor said, the only way Toombs could have shot Larkin like that was if the defendant jumped on a trampoline.
But deputy prosecutor Kenneth Burleson said the scenario of Larkin’s death was far grimmer. Given that the dead man’s only other wound was a scrape to his forehead - likely caused by Larkin collapsing from the fatal shot - Burleson said Larkin was probably kneeling before Toombs when he was killed.
As for a motive, Burleson pointed to witness testimony that Toombs blamed Larkin for having been tricked into buying counterfeit crack cocaine.
“He was mad because this guy had screwed him over on some dope,” Burleson said. “He’s above his head when he’s shooting.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 17 on 07/21/2013