4 Arkansas killers convicted as teens back in court asking for new sentences

All have life terms for killing as teens

Four men convicted of capital murder as teenagers returned to Pulaski County Circuit Court this week to begin the resentencing process that could lead to their release from prison.

Statewide, 55 defendants qualify for resentencing under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year that requires convicts serving life sentences for capital murder convictions as teenagers receive new sentences.

The ruling does not affect the conviction, and the inmate can still be sentenced to life behind bars.

All but one of 18 Pulaski County defendants have begun the process. The remaining defendant, LaQuanda Jacobs, 42, is the only woman in the state to qualify for new sentencing. She does not have a court appearance scheduled.

Jacobs was sentenced to life in prison at age 16 for killing 17-year-old Kevin Gaddy when she robbed him at gunpoint of his Chicago Bulls jacket in February 1992 at 29th and Jefferson streets in Little Rock.

Jacobs shot Gaddy in the chest. She denied killing him at her trial in April 1993.

Three weeks after Jacobs was convicted, Durrell Childress, then 17, killed an off-duty Little Rock police officer in a late-night robbery outside a McDonald's on Roosevelt Road.

Childress, now 40, made his first appearance Thursday before Judge Wendell Griffen, who scheduled his resentencing for February.

Henry Callanen, a 35-year veteran of the Police Department, was working for McDonald's when he was killed in May 1993. Callanen was delivering $2,700, the night's proceeds from the restaurant, to the bank when he was ambushed in the McDonald's parking lot by Childress and Everett Lamont Foreman, then 18 and a former worker at the restaurant.

Childress admitted to police that he had shot Callanen. But at his trial, less than a year after the killing, Childress recanted that admission, testifying that officers had bullied him into a confession while also promising prosecutors would not seek the death penalty if he admitted to the slaying.

He told jurors he ran when the shooting started, saying that he did not know that Foreman was going to rob the McDonald's. Jurors deliberated a little more than an hour to convict him.

In May 2001, Tyrone Duncan pleaded guilty to capital murder to avoid the death penalty for the August 1998 beating death of an 82-year-old Sherwood man who had given Duncan, 15, and his 13-year-old cousin a ride.

The two boys had been going door-to-door on Greenfield Drive where Bob Cameron lived, asking for a ride to Dunbar Junior High School.

Cameron's body was found the next day. Police said the teens had beaten him, then forced him into the trunk of his 1985 Chevrolet Celebrity. He died of asphyxiation, heat exhaustion and blunt force trauma to the head. The boys dumped his body in woods near Sherwood.

Duncan told police that he and his cousin wanted the car to go visit friends in Jonesboro, but abandoned the vehicle in Searcy after it developed mechanical problems.

Police said the two stole a 1990 Pontiac and were arrested in the car in Jackson County the following day. They led police to Cameron's remains off Walker Road.

The cousin, Joey Miller, was too young to be charged as an adult with capital murder, but was found delinquent on the charge in juvenile court.

Duncan apologized to Cameron's family after pleading guilty. His resentencing hearing has been set for February.

Brandon Hardman, 32, is scheduled for resentencing in January.

At his October 2002 trial, Hardman claimed he had acted in self-defense when at age 16, he shot another teen, a member of a rival gang, through the back of the neck in March 2000.

Prosecutors called the slaying a "targeted ... gang hit."

Hardman's lawyer argued that he should be convicted of a lesser, non-homicide offense: unlawfully discharging of a firearm.

Antwan Jones and Hardman, nicknamed Lil'G, had never met before the day of the killing at the Sunset Terrace housing project on South Battery Street, but Hardman was a member of the Folks gang, also called the Gangster Disciples.

Jones was in the Vice Lords, which claimed control of the project, and the groups were longtime rivals.

Hardman and friends had been driving through the area flashing gang signs at Jones and others before the argument.

Also scheduled for resentencing in January is 32-year-old Roderick Lewis, who was convicted of gunning down a 35-year-old acquaintance in North Little Rock when Lewis was 16 in August 2001.

Samuel "Cameo" Lunnie, a father of six, was shot five times, once in the chest and four times in the back, and died trying to crawl away from Lewis.

Witnesses said Lewis continued to pull the trigger of his pistol after emptying it into the dying man.

Lunnie and Lewis got into a confrontation in the doorway of the Olive Street home where Lunnie's girlfriend and her baby lived. Lewis tried to force his way into the house with Lunnie trying to push the door closed.

But Lunnie slipped and fell and Lewis started shooting. The teen fled before police arrived, but surrendered later.

Metro on 07/22/2016

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