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Carter admits role in fatal kidnapping, gets 10 years |
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Tuesday, 11 August 2009 |
A Pulaski County man struck a deal with Saline County prosecutors on Monday and confessed to kidnapping a south Arkansas man and standing by while he was later murdered.
Bradley Carter, 29, of the Landmark community told Saline County Judge Gary Arnold that he helped kidnap Derrick Utsey, 28, a resident of both Benton and Stephens, who was later found murdered on a rural Saline County road.
Because of the plea bargain, Carter was sentenced to 40 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections, but 30 years of the sentence is suspended. He will be eligible for parole after 10 years in state prison.
Carter originally faced charges of capital murder, kidnapping and aggravated assault, but his plea bargain led him to testify against his accomplice, Jason Taylor, 24, of East End in Saline County.
A Saline County jury convicted Taylor of kidnapping and capital murder on June 26. Judge Arnold followed the recommendation of the jury and sentenced Taylor to die by lethal injection. Taylor also received life in prison without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping and was found not guilty of aggravated assault.
Taylor continued to deny the allegations before the jury, but Carter testified at trial that the two kidnapped Utsey in mid-October outside a Southwest Little Rock motel.
Authorities said that Taylor, while high on methamphetamine, lured Utsey away from a hotel in Little Rock and then bound and gagged Utsey. Carter said Taylor showed up at a place Carter was hanging out, and Taylor had Utsey tied up in the back of a pickup. Taylor then drove Utsey to his deer hunting land, where he shot Utsey with a .22-caliber pistol in the left temple, authorities said. Carter testified that Utsey begged for his life before Taylor shot him in the head.
Carter said Taylor then dragged the victim into the woods, shot him a second time in the back of the skull and loaded the victim back into his truck before he drove the body to another location on the property and dumped the body.
Utsey, a father of five, was found Oct. 15, 2008, on Hensley Mail Route Road, and Saline County sheriff’s detectives said he had been dead for more than a day.
“He was off in the woods where people had been cutting timber,” Lt. Mike Frost said. “Utsey had been there about 18 hours.”
Taylor and Carter were arrested on Nov. 10 and 11, 2008, respectively, in connection with the crime. No motive for the crime was established during the trial, but it was suggested that the crime was possibly committed over money or drugs, and Taylor was accused of being a racist. Testimony claimed that during the kidnapping, before the murder, Taylor allegedly called Utsey, a black man, the “n” word.
An Arkansas State trooper located a weapon that was consistent with the one used on Utsey after Taylor tossed the gun from a moving vehicle during a traffic stop several weeks after the incident, authorities said. The gun could not be test fired at the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory due to the damage, but Taylor’s DNA was found inside the barrel of the weapon.
“Taylor did not just murder the victim,” Prosecuting Attorney Ken Casady said. “He chose to make the victim suffer, and he totally disregarded the value of the human life. The death penalty is, and should be, only reserved for those individuals who commit truly depraved actions, and when someone commits acts such as these in Saline County there will be a powerful retribution. Justice demands that he pay a price for his actions.”
Taylor is now appealing his sentence, and Carter, as part of the plea agreement with prosecutors, will have to testify again if Taylor is granted a new trial. Saline County Chief Deputy Rebecca Bush represented the state. Carter was represented by Saline County Public Defender Pete Lancaster.
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