Guilty in Realtor's killing, woman says

Jacksonville wife takes 30-year sentence, agrees to testify against husband

Officers escort Crystal Lowery from court Tuesday at the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock.
Officers escort Crystal Lowery from court Tuesday at the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock.

The estranged wife of Arron Michael Lewis promised on Tuesday to testify against him as part of a plea agreement that netted her a 30-year prison sentence for first-degree murder and kidnapping.

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Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Beverly Carter

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Democrat-Gazette file photo

Arron Lewis is shown in this 2014 file photo.

Crystal Hope Lowery, 42, admitted at the hearing in Little Rock to planning and participating in the September abduction that turned deadly for real estate agent Beverly Carter of Scott.

Lowery has previously denied any role in Carter's slaying, and Lewis, who is incarcerated while awaiting trial, has repeatedly complained in court that authorities have thwarted his efforts to contact his wife by mail. He has said he had evidence that would clear both of them in Carter's death.

Authorities have previously said Lewis, 34, had admitted to Carter's abduction but denied killing the 50-year-old mother of three.

In exchange for Lowery's guilty plea and "truthful testimony" at Lewis' January capital-murder trial, chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson reduced the homicide charge against her from capital murder, which carries an automatic life sentence, to first-degree murder.

He said her cellphone records show her participation in the planning and execution of Carter's abduction.

That lower charge carries a minimum penalty of 10 years but also allows for a maximum life sentence. The kidnapping count also carries a potential life sentence, with a minimum of 10 years. With the 30-year sentence, Lowery will have to serve 21 years before she can qualify for parole.

Tuesday was the fourth court appearance before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright for Lowery, a thrice-married mother of two, since formal charges were filed against her and Lewis in December.

Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for her husband.

Flanked by her lawyers, Lott Rolfe IV and Bret Qualls, Lowery's voice was barely audible to the two dozen members and friends of the Carter family who filled the courtroom. Lowery's face was noticeably flushed as bailiffs led her away at the conclusion of the five-minute proceeding.

Outside the court, she told news reporters she was "sorry" for Carter's death but did not answer any other questions.

Tuesday's plea marks just more than seven months since Lowery's arrest, which came a month after her husband was arrested about 2½ days after Carter's disappearance.

He was charged with capital murder the same day Carter's body was found buried behind a concrete manufacturer on Arkansas 5 in Cabot, where Lewis had worked up until his arrest.

At one time, when Lewis was representing himself after firing his first lawyer, Lewis had been scheduled to stand trial on Tuesday. That trial date was pushed back until January after he accepted legal representation last month from the Public Defender Commission, which hired defense attorney Bill James.

Lewis is not due back in court until October. James said Tuesday that he is still reviewing the case against his client, so he could not comment about how Lowery's cooperation could affect Lewis' defense.

Aside from Lowery's guilty plea, the proceeding revealed nothing new about where, when, why and how Carter was abducted and killed.

The following account compiles all of what's been revealed about Carter's disappearance in police reports, court filings, witness accounts and prosecution statements in court.

Carter was reported missing by her husband, Carl, shortly before 11 p.m. Sept. 25.

He told sheriff's deputies that he hadn't heard from his wife since she had phoned at 5:30 p.m. to say she was meeting a client at an Old River Drive home in Scott. When she didn't come home or answer his calls, Carl Carter said, he went to the house about 9 p.m., where he found the front door open, the house empty and his wife's 2014 Cadillac SRX, with her purse inside.

Deputies checked the house and the area, which is about 4 miles from the Carter home, but did not report finding anything.

Two of her friends later said they exchanged brief texts with Carter that night, with one of the messages saying Carter was in Lonoke.

On Sept. 26, news reports described the missing woman as last seen wearing a black sleeveless shirt and red shorts and carried a photo showing the blond real estate agent smiling broadly, dressed in black and wearing a gold chain.

Carter's schedule showed she had an appointment to show the Old River Drive home to Steve and Crystal Adams the night she vanished.

When deputies examined Carter's phone, they said they found one number representing a 16-minute phone call that they couldn't otherwise account for that same night. But sheriff's investigators said they were able to trace it to Lowery's cellphone, a discovery that made the couple potential suspects.

A large crowd gathered for a prayer vigil for Carter that night at Crye-Leike in North Little Rock, where Carter worked. The next day, Sept. 27, hundreds of volunteers -- including real estate agents, friends, family and members of the public -- helped deputies search the area for clues.

By Sept. 28, investigators had the couple's Jacksonville home under surveillance, and deputies followed Lewis when he drove away from the home in a 2014 black Ford Fusion.

Investigators were following the car westbound on Jacksonville Cato Road when it crashed about 3 miles away from the home, just before 10 a.m. Lewis was injured when he hit the windshield of the vehicle, which ended up on top of a concrete culvert; another driver told investigators she had seen the speeding car fishtail off the curve and into the ditch.

Lewis was taken to the hospital to treat his injuries. After he left the hospital midafternoon, authorities identified Lewis as a suspect in Carter's kidnapping with a warrant for his arrest.

Deputies said later that they found Lowery's phone inside the car, along with duct tape, a baseball bat and rope. Carter's phone was also found in their house, deputies said.

Asking the public to be on the lookout for Lewis, deputies distributed a photograph of Lewis taken at the crash scene that showed him in a black T-shirt with close-cropped hair. He had a bloody cut to his forehead and blood streaming from his nose and lips.

Lewis was arrested the next day, Sept. 29, at the Pleasant Pointe apartment complex on Green Mountain Drive in Little Rock. Police found a truck nearby that had been taken from the Cabot concrete company. But Carter was still missing.

When he was captured, Lewis said he had fled the hospital with glass from the crash still embedded in his head and complained that he had hurt his knees and ankles while jumping from a second-story window at the apartment complex in an attempt to flee. Police said he declined their offer of medical attention.

Pulaski County sheriff's deputies said they found Carter's body sometime after midnight, using cellphone records from both Carter and Lowery.

Deputies announced at a news conference on Sept. 30 that Lewis had been charged with capital murder. Authorities said Lewis had posed as a potential client to lure Carter to the Old River Drive home.

While being escorted to jail, Lewis told reporters that he had sought out Carter because "she was just a woman that worked alone. A rich broker."

In a subsequent interview with TV station KARK, Channel 4, about six weeks after his arrest, Lewis said he didn't kill Carter and that "anything that did occur was an accident."

He also said the case against him was "not as clean-cut as they are wrapping it up to be" and denied kidnapping Carter, saying that she willingly got into a car with him the night she disappeared.

In November, Lewis filed a federal lawsuit against the Pulaski County sheriff's office, saying he had been tortured by deputies who ignored his request for his lawyer and denied him adequate medical attention for his wounds. One officer twisted his arm so hard that his right shoulder was dislocated, an injury jailers refused to treat, he said in the suit.

Meanwhile, Lowery was arrested on capital murder and kidnapping charges on Oct. 30.

She and Lewis had been married about six months when she was arrested. But she had filed for divorce about two weeks after Lewis' arrest, stating that they had separated in late August and complaining that he had not told her the extent of his criminal past, which includes a conviction for bank robbery in Louisiana, theft convictions in Arkansas and arrests in four other states.

Lowery was held Tuesday in the Pulaski County jail, awaiting transfer to the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Lewis was on parole on the theft charges when he was arrested. He is now held by the state Correction Department on a parole revocation.

Metro on 07/08/2015

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