Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

McKinney Guilty Of Murder

GUILTY!

Linda McKinney was found guilty of murder in the second degree in connection with the shooting death of her husband, Jimmy.

A jury of seven women and five men sentenced her to 20 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction for her crime.

However, Eighth Judicial District North Judge Jim Gunter told the jury if McKinney stays out of trouble while in the penitentiary, she could only have to serve one-sixth of the sentence she was given. This would amount to a little more than three years.

Once the attorneys presented their cases, it didn't take the jury long to make its decision.

From there, the jury heard from family members of both Linda and Jimmy, each seeking different sentences.

Again, the jury didn't require much time before returning with a 20-year stretch for McKinney.

The trial began Monday, Nov. 22 with jury selection. This took all morning as the defense attorney, David Price, questioned almost every potential juror in depth.

At times his questions seemed to have nothing to do with the trial, as he would ask about what the person read, watched on television or did in their spare time.

More than 20 members of the jury pool were questioned in this manner before 12 were finally selected.

Randy Wright, 8th Judicial District North Prosecuting Attorney, representing the state, informed the jury opening statements by the attorneys was not evidence and should not be taken as such.

He said charges were brought against the defendant as a result of an incident on May 28, 1999, in which Jimmy McKinney was killed.

Wright went through the scenario as to the call coming in to the Nevada County Sheriff's Office at 5:34 p.m. with Linda McKinney telling the dispatcher she had shot her husband.

He pointed out the only witness to the crime was Linda as she and Jimmy were the only ones in the house at the time.

He told of the officers arriving, securing the scene and finding several casings of spent .22 caliber shells in the hall off the living room.

The jury was told how the victim was shot three times, once in the back at waist level, once in the left thigh and once in the left shoulder with the bullet traveling in a downward direction from front to back and left to right.

Because of the evidence found at the scene, he said, she was charged with first degree murder. "She killed her husband. You need to look at all the evidence and you will see it was a purposeful killing. She meant to do it."

Wright said the state would show there was no struggle for the weapon involved, a .22 caliber rifle, as she had claimed and the evidence would show such a struggle was not possible.

Price, in his opening, talked of the trouble the two had during their time as man and wife.

He said Jimmy was an abusive husband who suffered from impotence and wouldn't seek medical help for the condition.

Instead, Price told the panel, he verbally, mentally and physically abused his wife, claiming she was having an affair and cheating on him.

The two, he said, were married on two separate occasions, the first time in 1991 with a divorce in '96, and the next wedding later in '96.

From September 1998 until May 1999, Price said, Linda McKinney left her husband on eight different occasions because of abuse.

He told the jury she went to a battered women's shelter in Texarkana once and left the state to spend time with her brother in Texas because of the abuse on another occasion.

Price told the jury she went back after he continually promised the abuse would end, though it never did.

The state, he said, can't show she murdered anyone.

According to Price, on the morning in question his client woke up and was immediately berated by her husband. This went on all day, he said, terminating when he slapped her after she went to the store to get bread.

Price said the victim was actually the one who got the weapon from the bedroom, with his client struggling with him to keep from being shot herself.

"She's the victim in this case," Price said as he closed. "The state has no credible evidence of murder."

Following a lunch break the trial began in earnest.

Dana Marlar, dispatcher for the NCSO was the state's first witness. She testified the defendant called the NCSO, identified herself as Linda McKinney and said she had shot her husband.

Marlar then informed officers in the area to the shooting incident, dispatching them to the scene.

Price, on cross examination, asked if McKinney had called a second time to ask where the officers were.

Marlar said yes, adding the second call came only a couple of minutes after the first.

Reserve deputy Jerry Reeves was next up as he was the first officer on the scene.

He told of responding to the call, seeing two women on the porch of the house and McKinney coming out of it.

However, he was unable to identify the defendant in court.

Reeves told the court he asked where Jimmy was and was told "through the door." He looked in and saw the victim on his back.

When he asked where Jimmy had been shot, he was told, "in the leg," by the defendant.

Shortly after Reeves got to the house, Deputy Danny Martin arrived, he testified.

Reeves asked McKinney where the gun was, learning it was in a chair in the living room.

According to Reeves, Martin and Randy Goodeau, a member of the Nevada County Rescue Unit, attempted to revive the victim by giving him CPR.

On cross examination, Reeves was asked about the defendant's demeanor. He said she was cooperative and gave the officers no problems.

She allowed them to go into the house with no search warrant, though one was procured later.

Reeves said he had known Jimmy about five years, considering him a friend.

Martin was next, corroborating Reeves' testimony.

Martin told the court he took gloves out of his car upon arrival because he expected to be dealing with a good deal of blood as a gunshot wound was involved.

However, there was little blood found at the scene. Martin said he and Goodeau gave Jimmy CPR until the ambulance arrived and the victim was flown to St. Michael's in Texarkana.

He then called Arkansas State Police criminal investigator Scott Clark, who came and collected evidence Martin had gathered.

On cross, Martin said McKinney never mentioned she had shot Jimmy to him.

Ida Thomas was the fourth witness for the state. She was actually the first person on the scene after the shooting.

She had gone to the McKinney home to get Jimmy to open the church for services.

Thomas had no phone and had to go to the house to talk with him. When she arrived, she testified, Linda came out of the house and told her she had come at a bad time.

With the door being open, she said, she saw Jimmy on his back inside. She testified Linda said the two had been tussling over a gun, but she didn't know if she'd shot him or he'd shot himself.

Thomas went in, felt for a pulse and told Linda to call the NCSO again.

Linda, she said, asked if Jimmy was dead. Thomas said she didn't know.

At this point, Thomas's mother got out of the car, with Thomas telling her not to come into the house.

Thomas said she noticed the phone on the floor by the couch, but touched nothing after checking his pulse.

Linda, she said, was not crying, but did seem to be sad.

Thomas told the court Linda said "I knew I shouldn't have come back," but added she knew nothing personally about their relationship.

Price asked Thomas about a statement she had written. He was told she wrote it for herself.

He then asked about a statement in it where Linda allegedly said, "I know I'm going to prison." This statement, he continued, wasn't in the report she gave officers.

Thomas said there was so much going on at the time she didn't initially remember it when dealing with the authorities.

Price basically called Thomas a liar saying Linda never admitted shooting Jimmy.

Thomas, though, stood by her guns telling the court her statement was the truth.

Clark was next, spending most of the rest of the afternoon on the stand.

Both the prosecution and defense went through his story on where the shell casings were found in meticulous detail.

He repeatedly told where he had found eight of the casings, but was unable to account for the ninth one as he didn't find it.

Clark had made a diagram of the house's interior to show where the casings were found and where other evidence was located, including the victim's body.

Clark said he personally took the evidence gathered to the Arkansas State Crime Lab in Little Rock.

Deputy Hebb Sorrells, he said, did the gunpowder residue test on Linda McKinney.

The evidence included a Marlin .22 caliber semiautomatic rifle, taken for fingerprinting purposes and to see if it was the weapon used to kill Jimmy.

According to Clark, the weapon had no usable prints and no gunpowder residue was found on her hands.

Clark and Nevada County Sheriff Steve Otwell questioned the defendant at 12:30 a.m. May 29, 1999, as she was already in custody.

Price asked why the interrogation had to be done at this time, instead of waiting until the next morning.

Clark said it is important, especially in a murder case, to get all the information possible within the first 24 hours.

He said this information tends to be more credible when it's fresh.

Price returned to McKinney's demeanor while being questioned.

Clark said she didn't object to talking with officers after being read her Miranda rights and was cooperative with them.

He told the court she never said she shot Jimmy, but they had been fighting over the weapon he attacked her with.

When Price questioned Clark as to the condition of the room the victim's body was in, he was told a dark chair was overturned.

However, Clark was unable to tell where the telephone was as he didn't notice. Nor did he observe whether the room showed signs of a struggle other than the overturned chair.

Berwin Monroe, firearm specialist with the crime lab, told how the rifle brought to him was tested and proved to be the weapon used in killing the victim.

He also testified concerning a bullet fragment found in the chair, saying it was a different type of .22 shell as it was copper coated while those found in the victim were plain lead.

But, he added, it was too heavily damaged to determine if it had been fired from the same rifle or not.

On cross, Monroe said a trajectory test was not requested to show the angles involved in the shooting.

He told Price he had no idea how one of the shells recovered ended up 8 feet high in wall because he didn't know what went on at the time.

Jeff Taylor, with the trace evidence division of the crime lab, told what he had found from the evidence brought to him.

He said the conclusion was negative as to gunshot residue because not enough residue was found on her hands.

However, he said, this doesn't mean someone didn't fire the weapon.

Taylor said there are several ways such trace evidence can be removed from hands, including washing. He said a person putting their hands in their pockets would affect the evidence, as would sweating.

The bullet in Jimmy's back, he said, showed no signs of passing through the brown chair, but did go through his belt and jeans.

Taylor said residue was found on the victim's shirt, on the back of the jeans at the waist and on the left leg in the thigh area.

With the chair being worn, he said, there was no way to determine if a bullet had been fired through it, though no residue was found.

The residue found, he said, were consistent with a weapon being fired from two to four feet away.

Frank Peretti, forensic pathologist with the crime lab, said the cause of death was a gunshot wound in the left neck area, hitting the carotid artery traveling downward from left to right, striking the aorta in the heart.

There was no blood found at the scene as this wound caused the victim to "bleed out" internally.

The wound to the back was traveling in an upward direction, he said, while the one to the thigh was also going up.

With clothing involved, he said, it couldn't be determined how far away the weapon was fired, though there was no residue on the body.

Based on the wounds, he was unable to tell if a struggle had been underway or not as well, but did say there were no defense wounds.

The fatal wound, he said, could have come from the weapon being fired from above the victim, or if the victim was in a lunging position toward it.

Wally Hulan, chief deputy with the NCSO, was the state's final witness, taking the stand Tuesday morning.

He told where the ninth shell casing had been found and stepped down.

The defense had no witnesses, only entering the statement of Ida Thomas and rested, asking for a directed verdict, which was denied.

The case went to the jury at 10:02 a.m., with a verdict of guilty returned at 11:17 a.m.

During the sentencing phase, Wright called the victim's sister, Vera Craven, and a friend, Odell Hatfield.

Both told of how the community suffered because of the loss, and what kind of man he was.

However, the clincher was when Vincent McKinney, Jimmy's son, took the stand.

The son suffers from cerebral palsy and had difficulty getting to the stand.

He told how his father made sure he got to and from school as he, Vincent, can't drive, and how it's a struggle to attend school now.

Vincent broke down in tears on the stand and was assisted back to his chair in the gallery.

The defense called Waymon Dockery, Linda's brother, to the stand, with him telling of the abuse she suffered at Jimmy's hands.

Pat Roach, with a women's shelter in Texarkana, testified, saying Linda had been given shelter for several days and had bruises, blisters on her body and was nervous.

Wright, showing Roach her report, said there were no bruises or blisters, but a rash McKinney was treated for.

McKinney's daughter, Jasmine, told what a good mother Linda was and how she had heard the two argue.

The only time McKinney took the stand was during this phase. She told how Jimmy had physically, mentally and emotionally abused her for two years, and how she had repeatedly left him.

She returned, she said, because she loved him and hoped he would change as he promised to do.

She became hysterical on the stand, shrieking, at times, saying she had always had problems with Jimmy's family when the two were separated.

McKinney said she was sorry he was dead.

When Wright questioned her, he asked how much she had drank on the day in question.

She said, two beers, but he reminded her she told officers she'd had four.

She also told the court she had been taking prescription drugs as well as drinking.

The jury needed little more than 30 minutes to return with the 20-year sentence.