Man who killed lover receives 40-year term

He reported stabbing to police in ’12

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A 51-year-old North Little Rock man who confessed to killing his girlfriend and directed police to her body before investigators knew she was dead was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday.

Jeffrey Averett pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, in exchange for a 40-year prison sentence.

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Senior Deputy Prosecutor Marianne Satterfield told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright that Averett went to the North Little Rock Police Department’s detectives division Dec. 4, 2012 - two days after his 50th birthday - and told police he had just stabbed Joann Sessler.

Not knowing that Sessler was dead, detective Joseph Green read Averett his rights, and Averett confessed to fatally stabbing the 50-year-old woman after getting upset with her.

He told them she was on the kitchen floor of his home at the Latona Apartments on Latona Lane, where police found her dead, the prosecutor said.

Averett, a Georgia native, has out-of-state convictions for vandalism and cruelty to a child.

Represented by attorneys Lott Rolfe IV and Brett Qualls, Averett told the detective he “blacked out” after stabbing her at least three times with a steak knife and seeing her fall to the floor, a police report states.

The next thing he remembered was sitting in the living room and calling for her. When Sessler didn’t respond, Averett said, he walked into the kitchen and found her body with the knife on the floor next to her.

Averett cried and prayed during the police interview, telling the detective he truly loved Sessler and that he didn’t know why he had killed her.

According to police reports, Averett had been dating Sessler for about a year, and some neighbors had heard him talking the night before she was killed about hurting her the next time he saw her.

His sister told police she’d encouraged him to go to the police the day of the murder. Judy Rome said he’d called her and told her he was likely going to prison for a long time because he had probably just killed someone, according to police reports.

A couple of weeks before the killing, Averett had complained to her that he and Sessler were not getting along and that he was going to break up with her, but he had never talked about harming her, Rome told police.

Arkansas, Pages 14 on 02/25/2014