Court records show tragedy in slain Little Rock woman's life

Shirley Ann Kirklin endured her share of tragedy in her 47 years.

On Thursday, her boyfriend shot her to death, then killed himself, according to police and other records.

The couple's bodies were discovered by Kirklin's 15-year-old son, police said.

The deaths are at least the fifth slayings in Pulaski County attributed to domestic violence and the third murder-suicide this year, police reports show.

On Feb. 14, 32-year-old Jim Gilot of Missouri fatally ambushed 19-year-old Chasity Denise Cannady in her car outside the North Little Rock Maybelline cosmetics factory. He shot himself before police arrived. They had been co-workers at the company for a time, but were not known to have been romantically involved, authorities said.

The next day in Jacksonville, James Edward Price, 49, killed his wife of just more than a year, Denise Marie Hildreth, 48, in the couple's home at the mobile-home park at 2309 Hamilton Drive. Jacksonville police reported that a 4-year-old boy who had been with the couple was not injured.

On Thursday, Kirklin's son found his mother and Timothy R. Williams, 58, dead in the master bedroom of Williams' home at 8608 Edwina Drive shortly after 6:30 p.m. Her son called relatives who went to the house, where his sister called 911.

Williams fatally shot Kirklin then killed himself, according to a police report.

The investigation into the slaying was still open Friday so police were unable to answer questions about whether there had been previous reports of violence between the couple, how long they had been together and whether Kirklin lived at the home.

Public records show that Kirklin has reported living at three other residences in Little Rock and College Station over the past three years.

Property records show Williams, a widowed father of three, has owned the home in the Town and Country subdivision between Mabelvale Pike and Interstate 30 for almost 19 years. Williams appears to have no criminal record.

Kirklin was a mother of four who lost a daughter to gun violence and a brother to drowning. Another son and a brother are serving prison sentences for aggravated robbery.

[INTERACTIVE MAP: Search all killings in Little Rock, North Little Rock in 2018]

When she was 19, and her last name was Riley, her 21-year-old brother, Obie Riley III, drowned in a Gillam Park Road swimming pool in July 1990. Obie Riley, who lived in apartments next to the park, and five friends had crawled under a fence to swim about five hours after the park closed, records show.

Kirklin's 14-year-old daughter was slain in October 2005 at a convenience store on Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock by a gunman who repeatedly fired into the car the girl was in with four other young people. Lyronnica Riley was killed almost instantly by a gunshot in the chest. No one else was injured.

The girl's 23-year-old killer, Talideen Tramal Davenport of North Little Rock, was arrested about seven weeks later, based on the identification of witnesses, one of whom knew Davenport as "Fatboy." Authorities say Davenport got mad when Lyronnica's boyfriend confronted Davenport for making sexual overtures to the girl.

Charged with capital murder and unlawful discharge of a firearm, Davenport was convicted at trial in April 2007 and sentenced to life in prison.

Two months after the trial, Kirklin's then 18-year-old son, George Howard Riley, was arrested along with her older brother, Kenneth Dwayne Riley, for a trio of armed robberies around Texarkana.

Authorities said Kenneth Riley, 38 at the time, planned the holdups and cased the stores but sent his nephew and a second teen, armed with guns that Riley had provided, to commit the holdups. He also drove the getaway car.

Kenneth Riley, now 50, was sentenced at trial to 80 years in prison for aggravated robbery in June 2008 after George Riley, now 28, and the other robber, Timothy Holland, now 27, testified against him. They subsequently pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and were sentenced to 23 years in prison.

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Metro on 05/12/2018

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