2 slaying-case witnesses OK’d to testify

Suspect’s girlfriend, her mother reportedly told police of 2017 shootout in NLR

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza on Thursday cleared the way for two eyewitnesses to testify about the slaying of a North Little Rock man.

Felton Earl Duncan, 30, of North Little Rock is charged with first-degree murder, committing a terroristic act and being a felon in possession of a firearm, partially based on the statements the witnesses — his girlfriend and her mother — gave North Little Rock police in the days after the April 2017 shooting death of Rodney Lavell Austin.

Duncan is scheduled to stand trial next month.

Austin, 44, was fatally wounded in front of a MacArthur Drive home after he had gone to help his girlfriend’s daughter, 26-year-old Karen Johanna Kimbrough, police said.

Kimbrough had called her mother to the house to pick her up, saying that Duncan, with whom she has a child, had been manhandling her.

Austin rode over with Kimbrough’s mother. He and Duncan got into a fistfight after Austin saw Duncan hit one of the women, police said.

After the fight, Duncan ran behind the home and returned with some kind of big gun and opened fire, according to arrest reports. Austin also pulled a gun and started shooting. Austin was struck by several bullets, but managed to get into the car with Kimbrough’s mother, who drove away as Duncan continued shooting at her car, police said.

Duncan’s attorney, Lee Short, challenged the veracity of the women’s statements, telling the judge that detectives might have pressured the women into identifying Duncan as the gunman.

Deputy prosecutor Ashley Clancy argued that there was no evidence investigators had done anything wrong, pointing out that both women had known Duncan for years before the slaying and could reasonably be expected to recognize him.

Piazza ruled police had done nothing wrong after hearing the women testify about what they saw.

Kimbrough told the judge she had been inside the house when she heard shots and looked outside.

It was a “quick look,” she told the judge, describing how she had to turn her head to the left to see what was happening. She said she saw Austin, then Duncan before backing away from the window to call police.

Her mother, Lisa Kimbrough, 49, told the judge that Austin and Duncan both fired guns, but that she did not know who fired the first shot. She testified she had been in her car when she saw Duncan return from the back of the home with a “big AK” and start shooting.

“When anyone comes out with that big of a gun, their intent is to kill,” she said.

She said she saw Austin moving toward her car as the bullets were flying. She told the judge she ducked to keep from getting hit.

Austin was shot several times but managed to get into the car, Lisa Kimbrough said, and she drove away with Duncan firing after her. She drove about three blocks before pulling over at a convenience store to meet an ambulance for Austin, she said.

Duncan, who was on parole at the time, was arrested about 1½ weeks later after police tracked him to a vacant home at 1715 Martin Luther King Blvd. in Little Rock.

Karen Kimbrough was arrested with him on a charge of hindering apprehension over accusations that she had tried to hide him from authorities.

Court records show that Duncan has 11 convictions that include drug trafficking and possession of stolen property. He received his first prison sentence, a five-year term, in January 2010 for two counts of aggravated assault after he fired shots in April 2009 at a car carrying two women, one of them a former girlfriend, Andrea Davis, on West 12th Street in Little Rock.

He was next sent to the penitentiary in March 2014 on a 15-year sentence for cocaine and marijuana trafficking. The charges stemmed from a February 2013 arrest by Little Rock police investigating complaints about someone selling drugs out of a blue 2002 Ford Mustang on Maryland Street.

The Mustang, which turned out to have been stolen from Saline County, was driven away and police chased the car down and arrested the driver and Duncan, who was the passenger. During the chase, two bags were thrown from the car, containing cocaine, marijuana, pills, and a .40-caliber pistol with seven loose rounds, records show.