Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Details of Clark County murder to be included inlocal case

A motion to exclude information about a robbery and murder in Clark County has been denied in the case against accused Nevada County murderer Robert Williams.

The motion was among those considered by Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge Duncan Culpepper May 29 in Nevada County. In court notes, Culpepper wrote, The motion regarding Clark County robbery and murder evidence is being admitted in this trial.

Williams attorney, Cathleen Compton of Little Rock, filed the motion in 2006. Earlier this month, Compton filed a request to change the date of Williams trial, formerly set for May, to July 23. Williams had been slated for trial in Clark County on that date, but Comptons motion indicates that shes requested that the Clark County trial be postponed.

Williams is one of four accused in the 2004 shooting death of Robert H. Booger Red Cummings. Only Kevin Barton has been sentenced in Nevada County. In his testimony to the court upon his own sentencing, Barton told Ninth Judicial District Circuit Judge Duncan Culpepper that Williams shot Cummings in the back.

According to Bartons testimony in September of 2006, Barton said he, Williams and Bartons brother had entered the Cummings home with the intention of robbing the man. He said Cummings awoke to find the three in his room and that hed tried to grab the gun from Williams.

Thats when Robert Williams shot him in the back and he laid back down, Barton said during that court proceeding.

The three and Williams older sister, Tekelia Williams, were also accused of the murder of a 74-year-old woman in Arkadelphia a short time later. The four were charged with capital murder in Tates death. Only Kevin Barton has been sentenced in that case.