A 25-year-old Little Rock man who told police his girlfriend accidentally shot herself has accepted a 30-year prison term for killing her in an attack that came while he was out on bail for attacking his stepfather with an axe handle.
Nicholas Stephan Bates pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, for shooting Brittany Briana Cottrell last April at their apartment at 4808 Terra Vista Circle, sentencing papers show. He had been scheduled to stand trial today before Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.
Under the conditions of Bates' plea agreement, negotiated by senior deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill and defense attorney Bill James, Bates was given a six-year sentence for aggravated assault in the January 2019 attack on 48-year-old Marshall Crowder of Little Rock.
That attack occurred on Jan. 14, 2019, at the home the family shared at the Pleasant Woods apartments, 11800 Pleasant Ridge, according to police reports. Officers called to the apartment, who were let inside by Bates' mother, 49-year-old Stephanie Crowder, found Bates biting Marshall Crowder, who was trying to restrain him. Police arrested Bates without any trouble.
Crowder told investigators that he'd been awakened by his wife yelling just as Bates, without speaking, began to hit him with an ax handle. The husband and wife said Bates had been acting strangely that night. Crowder was not seriously injured.
Paramedics called to the home found Bates to be in the throes of acute drug intoxication, and he was foaming at the mouth during the ambulance ride to the hospital. He later told police he'd used marijuana that had been tainted with an unknown drug, court filings show. Bates spent about six weeks in jail before posting a $5,000 bond.
Police found Cottrell, a mother of one, dead after responding to a late-night call on April 6 at the apartment he and Cottrell shared at the Terra Vista Apartments, court filings show.
Cottrell, who had turned 27 about three weeks earlier, had been shot in the chin, with the bullet going through her jaw and her carotid artery before lodging in the left side of her neck.
Bates told police that he'd awakened to hear Cottrell fidgeting with a gun in the bedroom followed by the weapon firing. Bates said Cottrell had purchased the pistol earlier in the day and that he had loaded it for her. He further told detectives that she had been sitting in bed with the weapon and might not have realized a bullet had been chambered, saying she was inexperienced with guns.
Bates was not arrested that night, but detectives were suspicious of him from the beginning, noting that he did not know where Cottrell had shot herself, even though he described seeing her bleeding. Bates was also vague on the details of the gun purchase, gave conflicting accounts of how he called for help after the shooting and did not know whether Cottrell was right- or left-handed, court filings show.
Police noted that Bates acted as though he were going to cry during the interview but never produced tears, and that he regularly would not make eye contact when asked for exact details.
Bates had blood on his feet and hands, along with a fresh scratch on his chest. There were blood marks on the bed, sheets and around the room, and police found the bloody gun on the floor outside the bedroom, while the autopsy found no evidence of close-range gunfire.
A neighbor told police she was outside with friends working on her car when she heard gunshots. About 40 minutes later, Bates, covered in blood but wearing only shorts, came up to them, rambling about how he'd let his girlfriend play with a gun and she'd shot herself.
The neighbor said she called police but as she tried to tell dispatchers what was happening, Bates took the phone and began yelling into it.
She said he ran back to his house with the phone, and described how she followed him inside and saw Cottrell dying on the bloody floor, court records show.
Police were able to get an arrest warrant four days later, and Bates surrendered on April 14. He has been jailed ever since.
Police noted that Cottrell had twice complained about Bates in the month before she was killed.
On March 8, officers investigating a report of a man assaulting a woman at a Valero gas station at 6421 S. University Ave. found Cottrell locked inside the store to get away from Bates, who had left the area.
She told police she had gotten into an argument with Bates while driving and that he had punched her in the face and threatened to kill her. She had marks on her forehead and nose, officers noted.
Three weeks later -- eight days before Cottrell was killed -- police were called to the 1805 S. Franklin St. home of Cottrell's grandmother due to reports that Bates, armed with a gun, was there making threats toward Cottrell.
Officers found Bates with a weapon, which Cottrell said she had bought for him. Cottrell had police take the weapon and give it to her grandmother, court filings show. Cottrell had police order Bates to leave the property.