Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Man Enters Guilty Plea In Beating Child

A local man was sentenced to serve five years in prison for first degree battery.

According to court records, William Webster Hamilton, 22, of Prescott, entered into a plea agreement with the court Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998. By pleading guilty to the charge, he was sentenced to 15 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction with 10 suspended. Additionally, he can have no contact with the victim nor the victim's family again.

The victim in this case was unable to defend himself, as it was an 18-month-old child, who ended up hospitalized with a fractured skull and broken ribs, along with several bruises.

The incident occurred, records show, on or around Feb. 25, 1997 when the child was alone with Hamilton.

According to the statement Hamilton gave officials at the time, the child was playing on a bed in some clothes, while Hamilton was watching television. He told authorities the child said "da" and he turned around, seeing blood on the child's chin.

The statement shows Hamilton picked the child up, taking him to the kitchen sink where he was to be bathed. Hamilton said he told the child he was in trouble.

When the sink had three or four inches of water in it, Hamilton wrote, he turned to get shampoo but the child "jumped".

Hamilton stated he caught the child by the left leg in the thigh area, but the child's head and back hit the floor anyway.

The records show Hamilton put the child down, put a diaper on him and took the toddler to the landlords where the Nevada County Ambulance Service was called.

When the NCAS arrived, the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) reported seeing a male and female standing in a door waving them down.

When the EMTs went into the office, they noticed the toddler lying on the floor whimpering, but not crying.

The male, who turned out to be Hamilton, said the child's platelets were low causing him to bruise easily. He also said the child had a habit of biting his tongue and pinching himself.

The EMTs noticed blood coming from the child's nose and mouth, but saw no evidence of injury to its cheek, nose, lips or face.

Hamilton told them the child had fallen off a counter while he was preparing to bathe it.

The woman informed the EMTs the child was unconscious and hardly breathing when Hamilton brought it to the office.

According to the statements, the EMTs also saw a bruise on the child's left arm covering the entire elbow, forearm and upper arm. The bruise appeared to be an old one by its coloration. Hamilton reportedly told them it had been there about a week.

The ambulance personnel also found other bruises on the child's body, along with a soft mass on the left side of its head toward the back of the head. They were informed by Hamilton, the statement read, this also occurred about a week or so earlier.

The toddler was transported to Children's Hospital in Little Rock, where doctors suspected child abuse and notified authorities. The investigation led the Hamilton's arrest and charges of battery in the first degree being filed.

Doctors found, during their examination of the child, broken ribs estimated to be about two weeks old, evidence of broken ribs about six weeks in the healing process and a fractured skull.

In another case heard in circuit court Thursday, Frankie Wayne Kirkham, 18, of Prescott, was sentenced to four years in the ADC for aggravated assault and criminal mischief in the first degree.

According to the documents, reports were made at the Nevada County Sheriff's Office on Dec. 3, 1996, about 1 a.m., concerning people dropping rocks from bridges over Interstate 30 onto vehicles.

Officers from the NCSO and Arkansas State Police went to the scene, where they stopped Kirkham and Mike Cottingham. After seeing four large rocks in the vehicle they were in, officers took both back to the NCSO for questioning.

Kirkham, who was a juvenile at the time, was questioned with his mother present.

He and Cottingham admitted they were the ones who had been throwing rocks from the overpass onto vehicles.

Kirkham, for his part, was given four years in the ADC, with credit for 137 days already served.