A homeless man accused of killing a woman and her unborn child in Little Rock has been deemed by state doctors as fit to stand trial on murder charges, almost five years after the July 2012 slayings.
But the final decision on whether Mark Pierre Bonner is competent for trial is up to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.
Defense attorneys, who say Bonner is insane, are preparing to contest the findings in a March 10 hearing. On Wednesday, the judge received the latest report on Bonner's mental competency. Written in December, it states that Bonner is fit to stand trial.
Charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Bonner, 34, has been in custody since his arrest two days after the body of 25-year-old Alexis Esaw Khabeer was found in her grandmother's house on Hutsell Road. Since then, determining whether he is competent to stand trial has dominated the case.
He has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and has undergone at least six mental examinations, according to court files. He has been committed to the Arkansas State Hospital on several occasions. Doctors said that while Bonner has schizophrenia, he meets the legal standard for sanity in that he is able to assist his lawyer with his defense and was able to tell right from wrong at the time of the slaying.
Previously in the case, after doctors found him competent for trial, something would happen to again call his sanity into question. Records show that in July 2013, he assaulted a jailer; in May 2015, he was found with a makeshift metal knife in his cell; and in September 2015, he broke a fire sprinkler in the jail. Records show that he was accused of vandalism and disrupting operations at the jail four times last year, although authorities declined to pursue criminal charges.
Khabeer, who had a history of mental illness and homelessness, had been living in the Hutsell Road house, although it had no electricity, her family said at the time. Before that, they said, she lived on the streets for a while. She had left her husband a couple of months earlier. About five months before she was killed, Khabeer was placed on probation for breaking into the home and stealing cigarettes and a lighter, court filings show.
Her body was found by a friend who went to check on her because she had not been responding to text messages. Khabeer was 13 weeks pregnant, and had been strangled and beaten. Authorities have not said who the child's father was.
Police began looking for Bonner after neighbors, friends and family members of Khabeer reported that a man, known as Mark to some and Black Jesus to others, had been seen at the house with her. Detectives found him, wearing bloodstained clothing, behind a Taco Bell on Geyer Springs Road, according to reports.
He was arrested after officers said he admitted to killing Khabeer because she'd asked him to leave, according to reports. But in records since then, he has denied killing Khabeer or even knowing her. He told doctors that he said what he thought police wanted to hear after his arrest because they'd told him he would get the death penalty if he did not cooperate, according to reports.
Court filings say the following: On the night of his arrest in July 2012, Bonner told police that he'd known Khabeer about a week and had been living with her. On the day she died, he said, they had quarrelled and she'd asked him to leave. He said he'd asked Khabeer for a hug but she shoved him and took a swing at him. He said he punched her in the face and started choking her.
"After I hit her, I choked her," Bonner told detectives, according to the court files. "My mind was ... I was like in a totally different space. It was just like, oh s, oh s, look what I done. She was still moving, and that's just as bad as murder. And push came to shove and I just hit her like once or twice with a stick. I figured that would just get her out of the way," court files say.
According to reports, he said the following: He knew Khabeer was pregnant but that he was not the father; the blood on his clothes came from being close to Khabeer while he strangled her; he took the stick and Khabeer's cellphone when he left; he went to a convenience store and washed up, threw the stick away and put the phone in a trash bin.
Bonner, a native of New Orleans, said he'd been in Little Rock about a month before he met Khabeer. He said he had hopped a train to get to Little Rock.
Metro on 01/13/2017