Two men charged in the shooting of a suspected burglary accomplice -- a teen who survived up to 10 days in the woods -- will be tried together next month in Franklin County Circuit Court.
Dennis Pledger Jr., 31, is charged with attempted first-degree murder and first-degree battery, and Terry Waits, 47, is charged with first-degree battery in the shooting of then-18-year-old Jackson Whitten.
Pledger and Waits were charged in warrants issued Jan. 31, according to Circuit Court records, and were arrested separately in early February. Bail for each was set at $500,000.
Court records show Pledger posted bond March 16. Waits remained in the Franklin County jail Monday.
Circuit Court records say Whitten was shot in the head after a burglary last June, but Whitten survived the attack and told investigators who shot him and how he was found alive in briar and brush 30 feet off Arkansas 352 north of Ozark.
Circuit Judge William Pearson signed an order Friday consolidating the cases of Pledger and Waits, both of Ozark. Their trial is scheduled for May 17-18 in Ozark.
According to an affidavit by Arkansas State Police Special Agent Phillip Pierce, Whitten was shot sometime between June 19, when his mother reported last seeing him, and June 29, when a Johnson County K-9 team found him off Arkansas 352. The affidavit said there were several guns scattered around where he was found.
Whitten was recovering from his head wound in a Springfield, Mo., hospital July 4 when he told Pierce that he, Waits and Pledger stole six guns from Isaac Montgomery's home on Cat Holler Road north of Ozark. The affidavit did not say when the burglary occurred.
Whitten told Pierce he was driving the car away from Montgomery's home when he and Waits got into an argument. Pledger told Whitten to pull over, and when he did, Whitten told police, Pledger shot him in the head at near point-blank range.
According to the affidavit, Whitten said he took some of the stolen guns and ran into the woods, where he remembered passing out and waking up when found by the K-9 team.
Pierce said in the affidavit that he learned from medical personnel the bullet fired into Whitten remained in his brain and has caused permanent impairment to Whitten's health as well as "protracted disfigurement."
State Desk on 04/10/2018