Convicted of capital murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping, a gum-chewing Darrell Dennis quietly received the resulting lifetime prison sentence with no expression Thursday.
The eight women and four men of the jury deliberated about 35 minutes to find Dennis guilty of killing 18-year-old Forrest Abrams after abducting the Fayetteville man and an acquaintance, 24-year-old Tyler Hodges, in Little Rock two years ago. Dennis had denied any connection to the men.
Dennis' only reaction was to run his hands back and forth over his shaved head three times and whisper to one of his lawyers, Fernando Padilla.
Dennis' arrest in Abrams' killing sparked a legislative review of the state Department of Community Correction, which oversees probation and parole, after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Dennis had been released from jail less than two days before the slaying and was an eight-time parole absconder.
He'd never been returned to prison even though he'd picked up 10 new felony drug charges during 4½ years of freedom.
During the resulting probe, the agency's longtime director resigned and was replaced, and the agency implemented new policies to hold parolees charged with crimes until they can face a parole review. The department also rescinded a 6-year-old policy that allowed absconders to end parole by avoiding arrest until time had run out on their sentences.
In closing arguments Thursday, senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield told jurors that there could be no doubt that Dennis had been with the victims because he'd essentially signed his name to the crime.
She made her point while brandishing a police photograph of a yellow notepad from Abrams' car with Dennis' "Red" nickname and phone number written on it.
"We know that man was in there because that's his name ... and that's his number," she said.
And she tore into defense claims that Dennis was a "sacrificial lamb" being served up to appease Little Rock authorities eager to resolve the question of who killed Abrams.
"This is the sacrificial lamb -- Forrest Abrams shot four times in the back and left to die on 11th Street," Satterfield told jurors as she held up a crime-scene photograph showing the man's body just as police had found it on the street two years ago. "[Abrams was killed] because [Dennis] wanted money and he didn't get it."
Defense attorney Tom Devine also held up the photograph of the slain man as he again told jurors, as he had in opening statements, that Dennis was the "sacrificial lamb."
Police were so eager to solve Abrams' killing that they pieced together a questionable case against Dennis with unreliable witnesses -- Hodges, who was "drunker than Cooter Brown" after a night of drinking and drugging with Abrams; informant Alvin Cooper, who was motivated by a Crime Stoppers reward to help police, and "old drunk" homeless man Edgar Brown, whose statement that he had seen Dennis with the two young men the night of the killing couldn't be trusted, the attorney told jurors.
"What they've given you today is a lot of confusion and a lot of witnesses who want to point the finger at Darrell," he said, holding the photograph of the slain man above his head. "Why? Because someone has to pay for this."
Hodges couldn't really say who robbed and kidnapped him and Abrams until police offered Dennis as an easy target, Devine told jurors.
Tyler Hodges' certainty that Dennis was the culprit is more about Hodges trying to ease his guilt for saving himself while leaving Abrams behind to die, the attorney said.
"Tyler really wants this to happen because Tyler got away," Devine told the jury. "Tyler feels like he's got an obligation. Tyler is not sure of anything."
Hodges, a Memphis tattoo artist, spent a little more than an hour testifying Thursday. He said he'd met Abrams at the home of a mutual friend the night the teen was killed.
Hodges acknowledged he'd been drinking and using Xanax that night before trying some LSD he'd bought from Abrams. The drugs, alcohol and trauma he had endured had blurred some of his memories, he said, but he had a crystal-clear recollection of the face of the man who had kidnapped them.
"I remember his face. I remember his ears," he said during questioning by chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson about picking Dennis' picture out of a police photo lineup. "When I saw that [picture], it put me back in that whole situation."
Hodges testified that Abrams had driven him to the convenience store to buy cigarettes. He said he first encountered Dennis in the store parking lot when Dennis tried to panhandle money from him.
A short time later, Dennis was in Abrams' red Chevrolet Tracker, with him and Abrams, as Abrams tried to negotiate a drug buy, Hodges said. Dennis eventually pulled a gun, forced the men to give up their wallets and commandeered the sport utility vehicle, driving the men to another location where they changed cars, he said. After an unsuccessful attempt to withdraw money from Hodges' bank account, Hodges said he persuaded Dennis to drive him to a relative's home with the promise of securing cash for Dennis there.
"He was asking for money. He said he was going to kill us if he didn't get it," Hodges told jurors. "He said no funny stuff and he was going to hold Forrest as collateral and if there was any funny stuff, he was going to kill Forrest."
At the relative's home, Hodges said, he was let out of the car and used the opportunity to get in the house, where he called police. Hodges grew tearful as he recalled bolting into the home.
Abrams' body was found a few minutes later.
Dennis did not testify during the two-day trial. He has regularly quarreled with his lawyers -- and fired three of them -- during the two years it has taken for his case to get to trial.
But he sat quietly through the proceedings, interjecting briefly only twice before being hushed by his lawyers.
His first outburst was Wednesday when he yelled out "objection" during testimony by lead detective Tommy Hudson. Dennis apparently was upset when the investigator expressed his certainty that Dennis was guilty during cross examination.
"I believe Darrell Dennis is absolutely the person who killed Forrest," the detective said before the defendant's outburst.
Dennis spoke out again during Thursday's closing arguments by Satterfield, complaining that she was discussing the credibility of the witnesses.
Dennis also submitted a written motion to dismiss the charges to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza after prosecutors rested their case Thursday afternoon and jurors had been sent to lunch.
Dennis said the charges should be dropped because he is not the man shown on either video surveillance from the convenience store or the photographs from the bank where Abrams' bank cards were used.
"I want to initiate my own defense," he said, complaining that his lawyers and the prosecutors had blocked him from presenting evidence that would clear him.
He seemed disappointed when the judge said jurors would not be allowed to see the handwritten motion he presented to the judge.
But Dennis' only questions after Piazza formally sentenced him was to ask about how soon he could begin his appeal and whether the judge could have him returned immediately to prison.
Piazza said he would do what he could to see that Dennis was sent back to the maximum security unit in Tucker.
Dennis is already serving a 60-year drug-dealing sentence from 2013 and time left on his 1990 60-year sentence for aggravated robbery.
Witnesses in the trial included:
• Police officer Eddie Seaton, who found Abrams' body shortly after 5 a.m. while responding to a 911 call about someone being shot in the street. Abrams was lying on his side, and Seaton said he first mistook the body for trash in the street.
• Officer Kelly Lepore, who discovered Abrams' missing SUV at Abigail Street and Charles Bussey Avenue within seconds of police initiating a search, about 31/2 hours after the body was found. "I just happened to roll up on it" while on patrol, she testified.
• Police detective Terry McDaniel, who escorted the tow truck that carried the SUV to the police station and secured it in an evidence bay where it was later searched by police crime scene examiners.
• Crime scene examiner Rebecca Johnson, who photographed the SUV on Abigail Street and helped examine it at the police station. She photographed the notepad with Dennis' phone number but said she did not retain it. Johnson also swabbed the Tracker's interior for DNA and lifted fingerprints. She photographed and collected an empty gas can left on the curb by the vehicle, which Brown said he had used to take gasoline to Dennis.
• Dolores Brimley, who found Hodges' insurance card and two bank cards in the 3500 block of West 16th Street. She said she was checking her mail and saw the cards in the street.
• Charlotte Clifton, security specialist for Arvest Bank, who provided police with the surveillance video from the ATM where Hodges' bank cards were used.
• Mary Simonson, forensic DNA examiner from the Arkansas Crime Laboratory, who testified that there were no DNA matches to Dennis in Abrams' car.
• Dr. Stephen Erickson, deputy chief medical examiner, who showed jurors photographs of the four bullet wounds in Abrams' back and testified Abrams would have bled to death in less than a minute from injuries to his lungs and aorta. One of those shots had been fired so close to the body that his flesh was tattooed by the burning gunpowder ejected from the gun, Erickson testified.
Metro on 05/22/2015