FAYETTEVILLE -- Jury selection is underway for a convicted child murderer set for a resentencing hearing in Washington County Circuit Court.
Chris Segerstrom was 15 years old July 26, 1986, when he took 4-year-old Barbara Thompson into a wooded area behind the Lewis Plaza Apartments several blocks west of the University of Arkansas. He sexually assaulted her before bashing her head with a 40-pound rock and suffocated her.
Segerstrom, now 51, was convicted of capital murder by a jury in 1987 and sentenced to life at the Arkansas Department of Correction without the possibility of parole. He's been confined ever since.
Segerstrom's murder conviction has never been in jeopardy. But, the U.S. and Arkansas supreme courts in recent years have made a series of rulings juveniles can't be sentenced to life without parole.