Akansas car-crash suspect charged in mercury theft

Filing links Cleveland County burglary, toxic material spilled in fatal Spa City wreck

HOT SPRINGS -- A man charged in a fatal car wreck that caused a mercury spill in May, resulting in an environmental cleanup that cost the city thousands of dollars, also faces charges in the theft of mercury from the son of a deceased dentist in Cleveland County, a court documents says.

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The document, obtained last week by The Sentinel-Record, shows that Dakota Avants, 22, of Pine Bluff, the driver of the 2009 Mitsubishi Galant that crashed in a Hot Springs parking lot May 16, is a suspect in the burglary in Cleveland County, which involved the theft of 200 pounds of elemental mercury.

The document, a probable-cause affidavit, indicates that another person of interest in the burglary may have become ill as a result of the toxic material, and that officers with the Arkansas State Police were warned they could have been contaminated at the site of the wreck.

The source of the mercury has remained a mystery since the car wreck, which occurred in a parking lot owned by the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission and killed two Pine Bluff women. None of the accident reports released to The Sentinel-Record mention the presence of mercury, which is considered a hazardous material, and officials involved in the cleanup have declined to comment on its source.

Avants was charged in Hot Spring County with two counts of first-degree murder after the two passengers in the vehicle, Kersha L. Arrington, 32, and Ashley Nicole Whittington, 30, both of Pine Bluff, died from injuries sustained in the May crash, which occurred after a high-speed pursuit that police said originated in Hot Spring County when an officer tried to pull over the Galant for a routine speeding stop.

Avants told investigators that he was trying to impress his two passengers with the high-speed pursuit and estimated he was traveling about 130 mph when the vehicle crashed in the parking lot in the 400 block of Malvern Avenue in the early-morning hours of May 16, reports said.

He is also charged in Cleveland County with one count of theft of property, three counts of breaking or entering, residential burglary and second-degree criminal mischief.

When interviewed July 3 by a Cleveland County sheriff's office investigator at the Jefferson County jail in Pine Bluff, Avants denied having anything to do with the burglary involving the mercury, according to the affidavit obtained last week. He said the mercury was already in the Galant when the two women and a third person arrived to pick him up the morning of May 16.

The affidavit, which was provided by Thomas Wynne III, deputy prosecutor for Calhoun, Dallas and Cleveland counties, says the son told the investigator with the Cleveland County sheriff's office that the mercury was left over from his deceased father's dental practice and had been in the barn area of his residence in Rison.

The mercury was packaged in 10 pint-size to quart-size jars with cork lids and weighed about 200 pounds, the affidavit said.

After identifying Avants as a suspect in the burglary along with three other Pine Bluff men, the affidavit says, the investigator learned May 24 that Avants had been involved in a wreck in Hot Springs and that some of the liquid mercury may have been in the vehicle.

He contacted the Hot Springs Fire Department, which responded to the wreck, and received two reports, one of which showed that liquid mercury was "observed scattered all over the ground and parking lot area."

The investigator later contacted the special agent for the state police who was in charge of the Hot Springs investigation to advise him that state police officers may have been contaminated with liquid mercury while working at the scene of the wreck, and that there was "possible liquid mercury spilled in the vehicle that Avants was driving the night of the accident."

The special agent later told the investigator he had obtained a search warrant for the Galant and discovered "busted containers containing liquid mercury in the vehicle. The vehicle was then quarantined."

The affidavit also notes that another person mentioned in connection with the burglary "later got very sick" from the mercury. When contacted by the investigator, he stated "that stuff has ruined his life," referring to the mercury, the affidavit says.

After the crash, the damaged vehicle was towed by Combs & Burks Wrecker Service and remains on the wrecker service's impound lot, at the request of law enforcement officials.

"I would like to get rid of it and get it crushed," Combs & Burks' owner, Wayne Touchton, told The Sentinel-Record last week. "I've just got a car full of poison sitting on my property that I can't do anything with."

Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, the convention and visitors bureau operated by the ad commission, called the Hot Springs Fire Department when the mercury was first noticed, and he later hired an environmental company to dispose of the toxic metal at a cost of $12,938.29.

State Desk on 09/01/2016

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