LR teacher’s robber sentenced to 20-year term.
A 54-year-old Little Rock man will spend the next 20 years in prison for robbing an elementary school teacher at gunpoint.
Curtis Eugene Willis pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated robbery and theft in exchange for a 22-year prison sentence from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen. Because he has two prior aggravated robbery convictions, one of them for bank robbery, Willis is disqualified for early release, meaning that, with credit for the 18 months he had already spent in jail, he will be 74 when he is released from prison.
Willis was arrested about 10 minutes after teacher Kelly Simmons, 53, was ambushed getting out of her car in the parking lot of Booker T. Washington Elementary at 2700 S. Main St. in August 2018 by a gunman who demanded her purse and phone. She threw them down, ran and hid while the robber gathered up her things before fleeing.
Little Rock police used a phone-tracker app to track the phone, which led officers to Willis, driving a Chevrolet Equinox, at the intersection of 19th and Dennison streets.
Police started following his sport utility vehicle because its route matched the path shown by the app. The driver accelerated before the officers could turn on their blue lights, and they pursued the vehicle to the intersection of 18th and Schiller streets, where the Equinox pulled into the driveway of an abandoned home and the driver got out and ran.
Officers quickly chased down the man and caught Willis. Simmons was able to identify Willis as her attacker and he’s been jailed ever since.
Inside the SUV, police found Simmons’ belongings as well a BB gun and a purse belonging to 50-year-old Amy Lamuel, who had been robbed at gunpoint about two hours earlier, at the Barton Oaks apartments at 107 Barton St.
Lamuel said she had just left her apartment and was walking toward Barton Street when she heard a man walking up behind her. The man spoke to her and when she turned to look at him, he had a gun pointed at her, demanding that she “give me your purse and everything you got,” Lamuel told investigators. Willis was not charged with aggravated robbery because Lamuel could not identify him as the man who robbed her, police said.
In exchange for Willis’ guilty plea Monday, prosecutors dropped kidnapping, aggravated assault and firearm charges stemming from accusations Willis had abducted and beaten his girlfriend Christine Watkins, 27, about three weeks earlier in July 2018.
In October 2004, Willis was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal bank robbery charges for his role in the December 2003 holdup at the Metropolitan National Bank branch at 7401 Cantrell Road. Willis and an accomplice were arrested 11 minutes after the robbery.
Police said Willis went into the bank, announced he was robbing it and jumped over the counter. Willis, who never showed a weapon, ordered employees to lie on the floor as he grabbed money out of the cash drawers.
Willis fled in a car driven by Eric Jordan, now 36, of Little Rock. Police searching for the car stopped it at 32nd Street and Fair Park Boulevard where officers seized the stolen money, a pistol and a gun magazine. Willis was also subsequently charged in a May 2003 gas station holdup in Little Rock.
Willis pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery for the gas station robbery in November 2004 and received a 10-year sentence that ran concurrently with his federal time.
Jordan received a 10-year sentence for the bank robbery after pleading guilty in January 2005.