Judge allows testimony, evidence in murder trial

A Pulaski County jury will hear testimony about how a North Little Rock man volunteered to sit in a police officer’s vehicle as the officer tended to the man’s critically burned girlfriend in May 2013, a judge ruled Monday.

Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen also cleared prosecutors to use evidence seized from the Water Street home that capital murder defendant Matthew Wayne Nichols, 47, shared with Jessie Renee “Nana” McFadden, 39.

Items collected included part of a finger — with nail attached — discovered in the shower, a cellphone, a blue Bic lighter and a red gas can, according to testimony at Monday’s evidentiary hearing. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Nichols, who has prior convictions for second-degree battery and marijuana possession, at his trial next month.

Investigators believe McFadden was set on fire with gasoline inside the house, and that she had tried to put out the flames by getting into the shower because the plastic curtain was heavily melted and much of her clothing was found in the bathroom, Chief Deputy John Johnson told the judge.

He said there’s evidence of three ignition points in the home, including one in the front of the residence, and that there are at least two witnesses who saw Nichols pour gasoline on the burning

woman.

Defense attorneys Lott Rolfe IV and Brett Qualls challenged the legality of the search, disputing that Nichols had known what he was doing when he signed a consent form to allow detectives to search the rental home in the Rose City area shortly after McFadden was found. They questioned whether investigators had adequately informed Nichols of his rights before the search.

The lawyers also sought to prohibit the officer who found an injured McFadden from testifying at trial about how Nichols had approached him as he tried to comfort the stricken woman.

That request was also denied by the judge, who ruled that police had appropriately informed Nichols of his constitutional rights.

Testifying on Monday, officer Jeffrey Elenbass told the judge he had been dispatched to a Water Street house fire but was flagged down by a man who directed him to the severely burned woman, who was lying in the driveway of the residence.

“She was completely nude. There was very minimal skin on her body,” Elenbass told the judge, saying she managed to gasp a few words. “She was struggling profusely to breathe.”

Elenbass said he could do nothing but try to comfort her and let her know medical help was on the way. As he was talking to her, the officer testified, a man — later identified as Nichols — approached him, told him he’d been involved in a “family disturbance” and that he needed to sit in the officer’s patrol vehicle, a Chevrolet Tahoe.

“Exactly where he came from, I don’t know,” Elenbass testified. “He just came up to me and told me there was a family disturbance, and he needed to sit in the back of my patrol car.”

Elenbass testified that he didn’t know what Nichols was talking about or his connection to the woman, but he let him sit in the back of the sport utility vehicle while he returned to McFadden.

A crowd had gathered, Elenbass told the judge, and one witness said he’d seen a man pour gasoline on the woman; another spectator told him that the perpetrator was the man in his SUV and that he was escaping.

The officer said he saw that Nichols was about two houses away but was walking back toward him, so he arrested him.

McFadden died later that day, and Nichols has been in custody since.

Elenbass and Detective Joe Green testified that Nichols signed a consent form allowing officers to search the home, where they removed the partial finger and other items.

Both men told the judge that Nichols, who declined an opportunity to testify at Monday’s hearing, wouldn’t say anything to them about what had happened.

Nichols did not appear intoxicated or emotional, Green told the judge, saying he could faintly smell gasoline where Nichols was sitting in the back of the police SUV.

“He was emotionless,” Green said. “I couldn’t tell you what he was feeling. He had a blank stare on his face.”

The judge also rejected defense objections to prosecutors using the testimony of Nichols’ niece, Terry Yancy, at trial. Prosecutors told the judge that Yancy, a close friend of McFadden’s, told police she had overheard a phone call by McFadden the day she was killed in which the woman was making plans to change the locks on the house.

In the background of the call, Yancy could hear Nichols yelling that if McFadden put him out of their house, he would burn it down with her inside, prosecutors said.