PB police find body, decide it’s homicide

Man found shot, lying in doorway

PINE BLUFF — The city’s homicide hiatus of more than two months was broken with an early morning homicide Thursday at an apartment complex at 2402 McConnell Circle near the intersection of Jefferson Parkway and Dollarway Road.

Officers were called to the apartment complex about 1:30 a.m. in response to a report of a shooting, according to a news release from the Pine Bluff Police Department. Upon their arrival, officers discovered the body of a man, identified as Leoncio Flores, 21, of Pine Bluff, lying inside the doorway of Unit 5. Flores had been shot at least one time in the upper portion of his body, according to Jefferson County Coroner Chad Kelley.

According to Kelley, Flores was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m. by Deputy Coroner Eric Belcher, and his body was sent to the state Crime Laboratory for autopsy.

According to a department incident report, Sgt. Richard Wegner was the first police officer on the scene. Wegner said that he arrived at the complex at 1:40 a.m. and was flagged down by two men who directed him to an open doorway at the first apartment building at the intersection of McConnell Circle and Dollarway Road.

“I looked inside and saw what appeared to be legs on the floor,” Wegner wrote in the report narrative. “I pushed the door the rest of the way open and saw the body of a male lying on the floor. The body was face down with a large amount of blood around the head.”

Wegner and another officer, Branden Blake, searched the apartment and found no one, but did note a spent shell casing lying near Flores’ body.

Police had identified no suspects in the incident as of Thursday evening.

This latest homicide, the third of 2020, comes two months and nine days after the last reported homicide in Pine Bluff, when city police arrested Michael Moore, 19, of Pine Bluff, in connection with the deaths of his mother, Lisa Moore, 52, and Jomarius Haltiwanger, 18, on Jan. 3 of this year. Moore was also charged in connection with the Dec. 31, 2019 stabbing death of 33-year-old Sidney Hayes of Pine Bluff.

Moore is currently in the Jefferson County jail, charged with three counts of capital murder and one count of abuse of a corpse.