Wife, mom of 2 dead in woods is out of jail

Family posts bond of 21-year-old

Brooke Floyd
Brooke Floyd

The woman whose baby and husband were found dead in the Ouachita Mountains on Tuesday posted a $50,000 bond and was released from the Yell County jail Wednesday evening.

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Brooke Floyd, 21, of Greenwood in Sebastian County was arrested in the case involving her 10-month-old son, Harper Floyd, and 33-year-old husband, Brian Floyd, whose bodies were found by U.S. Forest Service members Tuesday afternoon after a four-day ground and air search.

Floyd was booked into the Yell County women's facility in Dardanelle on Saturday. A booking report shows that she was charged the next day with a felony count of endangering the welfare of a minor and a misdemeanor count of hindering apprehension or prosecution.

Her family members gathered the money to post her $50,000 bond, said her attorney, Bill James. They had contacted James, a Little Rock criminal defense lawyer, Tuesday night.

"The main goal in the last 24 hours was to get her out of jail," James said. "We have not focused on information acquisition yet."

The arrest report for Floyd is not yet available, said Capt. John M. Foster Jr., Yell County sheriff's office chief deputy. That will be part of the incident report, which is not yet complete and is part of the ongoing investigation, he wrote in an email Wednesday.

Her first pretrial hearing is set for 9 a.m. Aug. 7 in Yell County Circuit Court in Dardanelle.

On Tuesday night, during a telephone conference, Circuit Judge Jerry Don Ramey ruled that Floyd would be held on $50,000 cash or commercial bond, Yell County Sheriff Bill Gilkey said.

A copy of the bond order that Ramey issued was not available Wednesday. A call to Ramey's office was not returned.

Yell County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Tatum II said he will not file formal charges against Floyd until autopsy and police reports are completed.

Autopsies on the two bodies were expected to completed by today, said Kermit Channell, executive director of the state Crime Laboratory. Then it's up to the Yell County sheriff's office to determine what details to release to the public, Channell said.

"Our job is to determine the cause and manner of death," Channell said. "The autopsy can determine the cause, but we work with the investigation team to determine what led up to the death."

According to state law, the prosecuting attorney has 60 days after an arrest to file formal felony charges in circuit court.

U.S. Forest Service members had discovered Floyd wandering along a remote road south of Blue Mountain Lake in the Ouachita Mountains on Friday afternoon. She indicated that her family had car trouble, and a search for her husband and son began, Gilkey said.

At the beginning of the investigation, Floyd was not cooperating as much as she could have, Gilkey said at a news conference Monday.

After the bodies were discovered, Gilkey said at a news conference Tuesday that Floyd "obviously came to the area with the child," and "she left the child in a very unbearable and possibly dangerous situation."

State Desk on 07/31/2014

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