CONWAY -- A man accused of strangling his girlfriend with a cord in a motel room and then going gambling was charged Friday with capital murder.
After killing Susan Heather Stubbs, 41, of Conway on March 6, Scotty Ray Gardner, 55, of Conway took her money and phone and drove a truck to Hot Springs so he could gamble, according to a police affidavit accompanying the murder charge and a search warrant affidavit filed earlier this month.
Attorney Scott Brisendine of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission said Gardner, who is to be arraigned Monday morning in Faulkner County Circuit Court, plans to plead innocent. Brisendine said he had no further comment at this time.
Talking with police after his arrest March 7 in Hot Springs, Gardner reportedly said he had become angry with Stubbs, grabbed a nearby cord and "wrapped it around her neck."
"He said he was trying to knock her out," according to the murder-charge affidavit. "He said, 'I might have killed her ... I don't know.'"
Gardner and Stubbs had been living in Room 114 at the Days Inn in Conway since Feb. 21, police said.
When the couple began fighting, Gardner said Stubbs tried to kick and scratch him and could still speak, the affidavit related.
"He said he was finally able to get her 'to shut up and then she looked up at him.' Rather than stopping at that point where she had finally 'shut up,' Scott said he then 'wrapped that damn thing around her.' He said he thought, 'Oh, Hell,' and that he guessed he choked her out after that," the affidavit added.
At one point, he said, Stubbs "was looking up at him."
"He said he rolled her over so he would not have to look at her," the affidavit said.
"Scott said even after putting everything together he knows that it does not justify what he did but that he just got mad," the affidavit said. "He said he cannot really explain it. Scotty said after everything had happened he decided to just go gambling and not think about it, so he left."
The search warrant affidavit stated that Gardner said he had taken money and Stubbs' phone and drove to Hot Springs "and then on to some casinos."
"He admitted to using his phone and Heather's phone while on this trip," the report added.
According to the murder charge affidavit, Gardner told police that Stubbs "had been mouthing off to him" on the day of the killing. He said she also had been seeing other men.
At some point, he said, Stubbs pushed him and he then pushed her onto the bed.
"This was what he said had happened the last time that Heather had filed the domestic violence report," the affidavit said.
"Scott said then he did not know what to do but that he did know that Heather was 'not going to go tell the prosecutor nothing.' ... He said he did not want to go to jail. ... He said everything just kept building up and he had just snapped."
If convicted of capital murder, Gardner would face the death penalty or life in prison without parole under Arkansas law.
Arkansas Correction Department spokesman Solomon Graves has said that Gardner was a state prisoner for 23 years, from Oct. 31, 1991, until he was released on parole Dec. 4, 2014. Gardner was convicted of first-degree battery, second-degree escape and criminal attempted murder in the first degree.
The battery and attempted murder charges were made tougher because he used a deadly weapon, according to an email from Graves. Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland, whose office is handling the current case against Gardner, said the attempted murder charge involved Graves' wife at the time.
Gardner also was in the state prison system from Dec. 5, 1986, through Sept. 8, 1989, Graves said.
State Desk on 04/23/2016