Investigators found inconsistencies in a Little Rock man's account of circumstances surrounding the death of his wife, who was found fatally beaten in their home on Labor Day, according to an arrest warrant released Thursday.
Timothy Clevenger, 58, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Margaret Clevenger.
Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Michael Ford said Wednesday that Margaret Clevenger had died of blunt force trauma as a result of multiple blows from an unknown object.
After the arrest warrant was issued Wednesday, officers arrested Clevenger at his home and took him to the Pulaski County jail, where he remained Thursday evening in lieu of a $500,000 bond.
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Court documents indicate Clevenger has hired Little Rock attorney Patrick Benca to represent him.
Clevenger told officers that he left his home on Old Forge Court between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m. on Labor Day to go to the gym, according to the arrest warrant.
Neighbors corroborated Clevenger's departure for investigators and had mentioned it to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporters for a previous article.
The route Clevenger told investigators he took to the 10 Fitness gym did not match video surveillance of his tan Chevrolet Avalanche, according to court documents. Clevenger told police he stayed at the gym 45 minutes and then called his wife, but she did not answer her phone.
Clevenger said he then texted his wife to see if she wanted to go out for breakfast, but he received no reply. Court documents indicate Clevenger said he then left the gym without changing clothes and drove home, where he noticed the garage door was open.
Clevenger said he entered his home through the garage, let the dog out through the door in the laundry room and then walked through the kitchen toward the living room. He said he looked down the hallway toward the front door.
Margaret Clevenger was lying on the hallway floor, he told investigators, and there was "blood everywhere."
Clevenger called 911, who instructed him to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation until police and emergency officials arrived, the warrant said.
"My wife is down," Clevenger said in a 911 recording released by the Police Department. "It looks like she's dead."
Clevenger told investigators that he could not roll his wife over "because of her weight" but that he dragged her 3 feet into the living room so he could perform CPR, according to the warrant.
Clevenger told investigators he had not changed clothes, but video surveillance from inside the 10 Fitness gym shows Clevenger in different clothing, court documents said.
Officers have not found the clothing Clevenger wore to the gym, according to the warrant.
Detectives said there was no evidence of any forced entry at the house, and that the only door or window unlocked in the home was the one Clevenger said he entered through after returning from the gym.
Though investigators note that there were many valuables in plain sight in the home -- including a diamond pendant around Margaret Clevenger's neck -- detectives found no evidence of any property missing.
Detectives said there was a large amount of blood in two rooms in the house, and there were no animal tracks in the house, despite Clevenger saying that the dog was loose inside when he got home.
Detectives also said there was blood in several places in the laundry room and in the kitchen.
Clevenger told investigators that he never washed his hands or cleaned the blood off his clothing, but Margaret Clevenger's blood was found in the kitchen sink, and on the faucet, towels and on the handle of a coffee mug, detectives said.
Some of the blood was diluted with water, according to a report from the state Crime Lab.
Clevenger told officers that after leaving the house to go to the gym, he had not been upstairs, according to reports. Detectives said they found blood in the shower off the master bedroom and that the blood was higher than 5 feet off the floor. The blood was his wife's, court documents said.
Investigators also found blood in the dining room next to the garage that matched Margaret Clevenger's, officers said in the warrant.
On the master bedroom doorknob, investigators found a "small blood stain" that matched Timothy Clevenger's DNA, according to court documents. Officers said Clevenger had a small, fresh cut on his left pinky finger when detectives questioned him on the day of his wife's death.
When detectives pointed out the cut, Clevenger said he was unaware of the injury and could not say how it happened, according to reports.
More than 25 years before his wife's death, Clevenger was arrested in the theft of more than 1,000 religious books from churches across Little Rock.
Ford confirmed Thursday that Clevenger was arrested in those thefts in May of 1988.
The Arkansas Gazette reported in July of 1988 that Clevenger, 28 at the time, entered a negotiated guilty plea to stealing more than 1,000 religious books from two churches in Little Rock. Police found the books, valued at about $50,000, in Clevenger's Westpark Drive apartment.
Clevenger was sentenced to two years of probation, and was ordered to pay a $500 fine and to receive mandatory psychiatric counseling, according to a previous report.
Information for this article was contributed by John Lynch of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 09/28/2018