The Saline County sheriff's office said Tuesday that there "appears to be a connection" between a fatal shooting in Mabelvale, a suicide in Little Rock and a double homicide, in which a mother and daughter were killed.
According to the statement released Tuesday, the agency said investigators are confident that the person responsible for the Mabelvale homicide "is no longer a threat."
Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan said it was unclear Tuesday whether the suicide at a Little Rock mobile home park and the double homicide are connected, but investigators are looking into it as a possibility.
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Photos by Emma Pettit
Photos by Emma Pettit
He said it was also unclear Tuesday whether the double homicide and the fatal shooting in Mabelvale are connected. Little Rock police are waiting for more information from the state Crime Laboratory, McClanahan said.
The statement from Saline County did not say how the incidents were connected.
[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map shows killings so far this year in Little Rock, North Little Rock]
"It is too early in the investigation to draw conclusions or to release any additional information," according to the statement.
The agency wanted to "quash any fears" about the person responsible for the Mabelvale homicide, according to the statement.
In that homicide, Saline County deputies were called Saturday night to an address in the 7000 block of Myrtle Drive, where they found a person fatally shot in a driveway, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.
Midday Sunday, Little Rock police were called to a mobile home park at 11500 Chicot Road in response to a report of a body.
When officers arrived, they found Armando Castillo, 35, of Little Rock sitting in a lawn chair on the front porch of a mobile home with blood over the front of him, police said. Castillo had what appeared to be a gunshot wound in his chest, and investigators found a black and chrome handgun under his legs, the report said.
One person told police that the man did not live at the address and that the owner of the mobile home was out of town.
At the same mobile home park the next morning, a mother and her 15-year-old daughter were found dead in a blue Ford Explorer, police said.
Amanda Murillo, 32, of Little Rock and her 15-year-old daughter were found dead of gunshot wounds in the back seat of the SUV on Monday morning, according to a statement from the Police Department.
The SUV was parked between two vacant mobile homes at the trailer park at 11500 Chicot Road, the statement said.
The inside of the vehicle was covered in blood, and officials collected several pieces of evidence from the SUV, according to the statement.
Officers went to the lot at 8:20 a.m. after a caller reported that the Ford had blood on it, according to a police report.
Police did not identify the 15-year-old daughter because she is a youth, according to the statement. McClanahan reported the mother-daughter relationship between the two homicide victims.
In an email, Saline County sheriff's office spokesman Lt. Jeffrey Silk did not identify the victim in the Mabelvale homicide but said the victim is a youth.
Including the most recent killings, Little Rock had logged 25 homicides as of Monday. It's the most killings the city has seen between Jan. 1 and May 15 in at least a decade, according to police data provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through the state's Freedom of Information Act.
Between 2007 and 2016, the number of homicides recorded between Jan. 1 and May 15 ranged between seven and 14.
McClanahan said three of the homicides this year were fatal officer-involved shootings in which police were acting in self-defense.
However, he said the number of homicides is cause for concern.
"The numbers are bad, there's no way to sugarcoat that," he said.
Little Rock leaders also have expressed concern over the violence that began last fall and has continued into this year. There has been a 21 percent increase in violent crimes from Jan. 1 to May 8, compared with the same period last year, according to preliminary police data.
Metro on 05/17/2017
