A 52-year-old Jacksonville man accused of strangling an 85-year-old widow in her Sherwood home was given a September trial date Tuesday after state doctors found him competent to stand trial.
Chris Anthony Arnold is charged with capital murder in the November slaying of Maurine Eloy McDonald Jones.
Arrested four days before Christmas, he also faces gun and drug charges based on the arresting officers' discovery of methamphetamine, marijuana, and two rifles and a pistol in his home at 6906 Gibson Drive.
As a felon with a 2004 conviction for theft by receiving in Cleburne County, Arnold is barred from owning guns.
According to police reports, Arnold's 80-year-old mother, Pauline Marie Arnold of Jacksonville, found Jones dead in Jones' Shoshoni Drive home just before 8 a.m. on Dec. 1.
Jones was a grandmother of 17 who had been widowed a little more than three years. She was found with something wrapped around her neck, and her death was attributed to "ligature strangulation."
Prosecutors believe that she was killed the night before her body was found.
Police haven't said what prompted Pauline Arnold, a widowed mother of four, to go to the residence the day she discovered Jones' body, although both women attended the same church.
Police reports show that detectives turned their attention to Arnold's son after she told them Chris Arnold had been fishing on Indian Head Lake behind Jones' home the night before Jones' remains were found.
Chris Arnold gave "inconsistent statements" to police, and he was arrested after DNA tests showed that his genetic material was found on both of the dead woman's hands, court filings show. He declined to cooperate with police after his arrest, according to reports.
Chris Arnold was in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Tuesday for Judge Herb Wright to receive the results of his mental evaluation. Doctors at the Arkansas State Hospital diagnosed Arnold with borderline intellectual functioning but found no mental illness, according to reports.
Wright deemed Arnold fit to stand trial after his attorneys, Brett Qualls and Lott Rolfe IV, said they accepted the findings.
At the time of Jones' slaying, Chris Arnold was awaiting trial on a methamphetamine charge stemming from his June 30 arrest in Indian Head Park in Sherwood, about a quarter mile from Jones' house.
Arnold was arrested shortly before midnight after police, investigating a white pickup parked after-hours in the park, discovered that he had meth in his wallet, an arrest report said.
A woman with him was released without being charged. Chris Arnold told police that she was his stepdaughter, according to the arrest report.
Metro on 05/10/2017