Prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges of kidnapping and attempted capital murder against a Sherwood man whose attorney said his accuser was too traumatized from drug abuse and maltreatment to clearly remember that the man actually had tried to rescue her.
Deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson withdrew the charges, which also included first-degree battery, against Joshua Matthew Padilla, 30, at the insistence of victim Shannon Lee Cox of Greenbrier.
Cox, who had been shot and thrown off a bridge a year ago, threw her hands in the air and wept when Circuit Judge Herb Wright dismissed the case.
Patterson told the judge that defense attorney Leon Monterrey had given her a handwritten note just before Tuesday's hearing, purporting to be from Cox, 30, asking that the charges against Padilla be dropped.
The note stated that Cox could not remember details of what had happened to her the night of June 6, 2015, because she had been praying so hard during her ordeal, the prosecutor told the judge.
Patterson said that once she confirmed with Cox that the note was from her, there was not enough evidence to move forward with the charges, which could have sent Padilla to prison for life.
The decision freed the Sherwood man after 371 days behind bars. He was the only one of the three defendants to go to trial and the only one with a record of criminal violence, including a misdemeanor assault conviction for an attack on another inmate.
His trial almost two weeks ago ended in mistrial after prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that supported some of Padilla's claims.
There is no dispute that Cox, a married Greenbrier mother of two, had been abducted and brutalized.
Her ordeal came to light when Cox -- muddy, bloody and half-naked -- ran out of the weeds alongside Fortson Road in Pulaski County the morning of June 7, 2015, and flagged down a passing motorist, who called sheriff's deputies and took her to get medical attention for wounds that included a gunshot in her head.
Two others already have pleaded guilty to the charges.
Nick Edward McDaniel, 37, of North Little Rock accepted a 40-year sentence. Investigators said he instigated the attack, shot Cox in the head and threw her off the bridge. Padilla's girlfriend, Samantha LeeAnn McClain, 30, is serving 25 years.
Cox testified during Padilla's trial that she had not completely cooperated with sheriff's deputies initially. She told jurors that she had given them only the nicknames of her assailants because she did not want to be labeled a "snitch."
She also told jurors that she wanted to believe Padilla was her friend, but also acknowledged that he had gagged her with a sock and blindfolded her with bandages before she was taken from the McDaniel home.
She told jurors that Padilla had beaten her at the home, but said she thought he had volunteered to do it to save her from a worse beating at McDaniel's hands.
The proof of Padilla's intentions was that she had suffered no broken bones, Cox said, because the last time a man had hit her, she had suffered those injuries.
She also said that after she was shot, Padilla gave McDaniel an object that McDaniel used to hit her on the head as she lay on the bridge. Padilla helped McDaniel lift her and throw her off the bridge, she said.
Cox said she had been briefly sexually involved with McDaniel, nicknamed AZ, during a drug binge at his home.
McDaniel had attacked her in his bedroom, but she wasn't sure why. She said she had been repulsed by his filthy living conditions so, in a drugged frenzy, had been cleaning up, despite his demands that she not touch anything of his.
She denied defense accusations that McDaniel had caught her stealing drugs from him, telling jurors that she only had taken back pills that McDaniel had stolen from her.
She also denied that McDaniel was mad at her for not telling him she had hepatitis C before they had unprotected sex, telling jurors that all of her friends, including McDaniel, knew she had the communicable virus.
The trial ended before the defense could put on evidence, but Monterrey, Padilla's attorney, told jurors that his client was afraid of McDaniel and that the older man had forced Padilla to go along with torturing Cox, sometimes issuing his orders to the man at gunpoint.
Padilla had tried to help Cox during her ordeal, but she just couldn't remember that, the defense lawyer said at trial.
Monterrey told jurors that Cox's memories couldn't be trusted because of all of the drugs she'd used that night combined with what had happened to her.
As evidence of her condition at the time, Monterrey had subpoenaed two Baptist Health Medical Center emergency room doctors to testify about her treatment, but neither went to court, prompting Monterrey to seek contempt charges against the physicians.
Tuesday's hearing was for the judge to decide whetehr he would punish the doctors. The only one of the doctors at fault was Zachary Roe, the judge said.
The judge told Roe that the only reason he was not going to jail was because his absence did not affect the trial, but the judge warned the doctor that he likely would go to jail if he ever ignored another subpoena.
The judge said the second doctor, C.W. Lyle, was not at fault because another doctor had accepted the subpoena on his behalf.
Metro on 06/15/2016