Cohn Found Fit To Stand Trial In Homicide

Cohn

Cohn

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A man accused of killing a Fayetteville woman more than seven years ago is mentally fit to stand trial, according to a report from doctors at the state hospital.

Rico Tavarous Cohn, 28, is charged in connection with capital murder in the death of Nina Ingram, who was a 21-year-old college student. Ingram was found strangled inside her Sycamore Street apartment April 22, 2006. Cohn was arrested and charged after Fayetteville police reopened the case in 2012.

Doctors found no indication Cohn suffers from mental impairment or mental disease, and they determined he could conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, understands the proceedings against him and is capable of assisting in his own defense, according to the report.

Cohn told the doctors he did not want to pursue a mental disease or defect defense and declined to provide information that would substantiate an acquittal by reason of insanity, according to the report. Admitting guilt is a requirement of a mental defense.

Cohn repeatedly denied killing Ingram, according to the report.

“The state is accusing me of breaking and entering and strangling someone to death, which is totally untrue,” Cohn is quoted as telling doctors. “I do feel for what their family is going through, but their pain was not caused by me.”

Cohn, who is facing the death penalty if convicted, told doctors he has no interest in a plea bargain.

Tony Pirani and Kao Lee, public defenders for Cohn, recently tried to head off the death penalty by having it declared unconstitutionally cruel and unusual as well as excessive, arbitrary and capricious. Washington County Circuit Judge William Storey denied three related defense motions.

“As I understand the law, both from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court, our death penalty is constitutional, and I won’t declare it otherwise,” Storey said. “Whether it’s good public policy or not is not for this court to decide.”

Prosecuting Attorney John Threet said he has not decided whether to seek the death penalty against Cohn.

Cohn is set for trial March 10. Cohn has been in the Washington County Jail without bond since his arrest June 6, 2012.

After six years of having no leads, Fayetteville police decided to take another look at the cold case, examining facts and interviewing several witnesses and at least three confi dential informants. New information, including DNA evidence, came to light implicating Cohn, according to police.

Police said they believe Ingram was targeted after she rebuffed Cohn and others who made inappropriate comments to her as she left her apartment. That incident was about a week before Ingram was killed. A confi dential informant said Cohn was upset because Ingram thought she was too good for him, police said. Cohn told several confidential informants details of the crime scene known only to police, and he told one of them he killed Ingram, according to police.

Ingram was last seen just before midnight April 21, 2006, when she left her job at the Walmart Supercenter on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. She spent time with her boyfriend, Josh Stewart, before returning to her apartment.

Stewart said he dropped Ingram off at her apartment and returned home, according to police.

Ingram’s brother went to check on her after Ingram didn’t answer the telephone. Her brother crawled through a window when she didn’t answer the door and found her body. Police noted no forced entry had been made into her apartment.

A Texas native, Nina Ingram moved to Fayetteville with her mother and two brothers for her freshman year of high school, while her father and other brother remained in Lillian, Texas. After graduating from Fayetteville High School in 2002, she attended North-West Arkansas Community College, where she was majoring in business. Ingram was employed by Walmart as a member of its loss prevention team.