FORT SMITH -- The state says the shooting death of Arthur McIntyre was murder, but the attorney for the man accused of shooting him says it was self-defense.
A Sebastian County Circuit Court jury of seven men and five women was seated Tuesday to decide whether Denver Wayne Pennington is guilty of first-degree murder in a trial that is scheduled to last all week. Pennington also is on trial on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Pennington is accused of shooting McIntyre, 33, once in the torso in early on Jan. 26 outside a home at 3001 Alabama Ave. Witnesses testified the bullet fragmented when it went through a chain-link fence before hitting McIntyre and McIntyre was struck by several of those fragments.
Fort Smith police evidence custodian Ricky Brooks, displaying McIntyre's brown T-shirt to jurors Tuesday, counted four or five holes in the chest area of the shirt.
The owner of the home on Alabama Avenue, Alexander Parrett, testified Tuesday that he had allowed Pennington and his girlfriend, Cymanthia Vanmatre, to move in and sleep in his home Jan. 26 for $20.
He said the couple unloaded some possessions from their car and tried to sleep on a couch while Parrett and McIntyre, his best friend, got drunk on whiskey, danced around and played loud music.
Parrett, who said he was getting drunk for the third time that day, noticed at one point that Pennington was loading his and Vanmatre's possessions back into their 1991 Toyota that was backed up to a chain-link fence gate near the back door of the house.
Parrett said he walked outside and was standing next to Pennington just outside the driver-side door of the Toyota when McIntyre emerged from the back door. He said Pennington pulled out a rifle from inside the car and warned McIntyre not to move any closer, then fired one shot at him.
McIntyre, who was standing at the gate, 16 feet from the back door, fell dead. Pennington and Vanmatre got into the Toyota and drove off, as did another visitor who had been inside the house with Parrett's roommate, Sarah Johnson, Parrett testified.
McIntyre was wearing only a T-shirt, shorts and socks as he lay dead in the cold January night, Parrett said. As Johnson knelt next to McIntyre screaming, Parrett said he held McIntyre's feet off the ground so they wouldn't get cold as they waited for emergency personnel to arrive.
Parrett testified McIntyre was not armed when he was shot, and Fort Smith police detective Jason Scarborough testified he found no knives or other weapons on or around McIntyre at the crime scene.
Pennington's attorney, Erwin Davis of Fayetteville, told jurors in his opening statement that his client tried to defend himself from McIntyre, who he said threatened Pennington with a knife inside the house and broke their possessions, causing Pennington and Vanmatre to leave the house.
A next-door neighbor, Perry Anglin, testified that he heard loud arguing coming from Parrett's home. The loud noise from his neighbor was a common occurrence, he said.
He called the police, then stepped outside where he said he heard the argument get louder and louder over three or four minutes and ended in a gunshot. He said he couldn't see what happened because of a privacy fence that separated his home from Parrett's.
Parrett testified that he never heard any arguing and knew nothing of any threats. He told Davis under cross examination that he wasn't passed out before the shooting, as Davis suggested, because just before Pennington and Vanmatre began moving their possessions, he and McIntyre were dancing in Parrett's bedroom.
Davis tried to question Parrett about a three-page statement he wrote for police hours after the shooting about what happened. But Parrett said he was still drunk when he wrote it and couldn't remember Tuesday what he had written.
Testimony resumes at 9 a.m. today.
NW News on 09/07/2016