HOT SPRINGS — HOT SPRINGS - A defense attorney told a jury Wednesday that his client killed a homeless man, likely had sex with the corpse and stuffed the remains in a trash can.
Garland County public defender Mark Fraiser asked the jury to acquit Kevin Ray Pearcy of capital murder because of his client’s mental illness.
Pearcy’s trial in the July 5, 2008, stabbing death of his friend, Stacy Jay Lewis, began Wednesday. He faces upto life in prison if convicted.
“This case is different than most,” Fraiser told the jury. “You are going to see things that will shock you to the core.”
He warned jurors about gruesome photos of a decomposing body and said they will hear about necrophilia and other sexual fetishes.
Also Wednesday, Hot Springs police described the unusual way they learned of the killing.
Before Pearcy, 34, ended up in a squad car Aug. 11, officers didn’t know there was a homicide about five weeks before.
No one reported Lewis missing. The 31-year-old was frequently jobless and had no known relatives locally.
Pearcy confessed while officers took him to jail on an unrelated misdemeanor warrant, police testified.
He blurted out that he had stabbed his friend because he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone and to see if he could get away with murder, officers testified.
The defense does not dispute those accounts.
Detectives said they later took a more detailed statement that led them to a trash can holding Lewis’ decomposed remains, wrapped in bedding and a disposable mattress.
After moving the body around his apartment, Pearcy eventually dumped the remains in the trash can and poured household cleaning products in the garbage to conceal the odor, according to testimony.
Fraiser emphasized that Pearcy told police that he had become “fascinated” by detective shows and that he described writing on his victim’s leg “catch me if you can.”
That was going to be “his mark,” Fraiser said.
Pearcy has a documented history of mental-health problems, Fraiser said, noting that in 1993 he was diagnosed with psychotic disorders and later was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
He was physically abused and saw his mother abused, Fraiser said.
And he has long exhibited “bizarre behavior” when it came to sex, feeling compelled to have sex with “anyone,” Fraiser said.
He sat quietly in a suit between attorneys, occasionally darting his eyes at onlookers as attorneys described the crime.
He was attracted to Lewis, his drinking buddy, Fraiser said.
They apparently met at a homeless shelter where they had both sought refuge.
At one point last year, Pearcy moved into an apartment and invited Lewis to stay over.
That’s where Lewis was stabbed to death.
“Stacy didn’t want to die,” Prosecuting Attorney Steve Oliver said. “Kevin Pearcy wanted him dead.”
“A life cut short. A homeless man that no one would miss,” he said.
The trial before Garland County Circuit Judge John Homer Wright is to resume today. “
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/10/2009