Cabot woman loses appeal in '12 slaying

The Cabot woman seeking to overturn her 46-year sentence in the 2012 slaying of James Heath lost her appeal Wednesday.

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Joyce Rene Rollf, 43, said Pulaski County prosecutors had failed to prove it was her actions and not the actions of others that killed Heath.

But the Arkansas Court of Appeals, without dissent, said a jury could reasonably conclude that Rollf caused Heath's death by hitting him with a baseball bat.

Rollf was "getting high on methamphetamine" inside her Centennial Road mobile home with her boyfriend, roommate, and Heath in September 2012 when she and Heath left the room, witnesses said. They reported hearing a loud "ting noise" as though someone had been hit by a metal baseball bat.

According to testimony, Rollf decided to attack Heath because he told Rollf's mother that Rollf was using drugs.

One witness said that Rollf, who admitted hitting Heath, messaged him to come to her trailer that day to help beat up the "snitch."

Court records and testimony show that accounts varied on the melee that occurred inside Rollf's trailer but some accounts said that Heath and Rollf struggled during a prolonged fight involving eye-gouging, biting, and ultimately several blows to Heath's body and head with the bat.

John Posey, who was sentenced to second-degree murder in the slaying, testified that Heath had taken refuge in the home's bathroom but that Rollf kicked the door off the hinges and went in with a knife.

Posey said he stopped her from using a knife and told her "if you want to beat his ass, beat his ass, but you're not going in there with a knife."

Posey said he saw his wife, Jody, stepping on Heath's neck following the fight, which Rollf's attorney argued may have been what killed Heath, not his client.

After Heath was presumed dead, Rollf took control of the group, according to witnesses, and had them fix Heath's body on a door, drag it outside, and bury it a few hundred feet from her trailer.

The court ruled Wednesday that though medical experts couldn't rule out that weight put on Heath's windpipe could have played a part in the death, testimony showing that the blow to the head clearly contributed to the death was enough.

The court also rejected arguments from Rollf's attorney that Rollf didn't intend to kill Heath because witnesses described Heath begging for his life. Rollf's decision to destroy evidence and bury the body under a pile of debris "show a purposeful mental state," the court said.

Rollf remains at the McPherson prison unit in Newport. In addition to the murder conviction, she is serving time for tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

Metro on 10/01/2015

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