Suspect charged in slaying of woman
A Cross County man who admitted to hiding his father’s dead body in a shed behind his home for months told investigators he also was responsible for his girlfriend’s death in 2017, authorities said Saturday.
Authorities from the Cross County sheriff’s office, Wynne police and Arkansas State Police searched Benny Clay Melton’s home at 620 Arkansas 1 South on Sept. 15 and found the decomposed remains of his father, 74-year-old Benny Melton Sr., according to a probable cause affidavit. Melton Jr. told investigators his father died of natural causes in February, authorities said.
On July 10, Melton Sr.’s brother reported to authorities the man had been missing for two months, the affidavit states. The brother traveled to Arkansas from Michigan but wasn’t able to find him.
Though Melton Sr. was missing, detectives learned his checking account had been used for transactions at Hay’s Food Town and City Liquor in Wynne after the man had reportedly disappeared, authorities said.
On July 21 investigators spoke to Melton Jr., who told them he had last seen his father July 5, before he checked himself into Cross Ridge Community Hospital for an illness. Melton Jr. said he was discharged July 12 but hadn’t seen his father since leaving for the hospital, according to the affidavit.
The Cross County sheriff’s office, with support from state police, interviewed Melton Jr. again Sept. 15. Authorities said the man admitted his father had died months earlier and that he hid his body under a tarp.
Investigators were unable to determine how Melton Sr. died because 0f the remains’ “advanced state of decay,” the affidavit states.
During the investigation authorities recalled the house was the scene of a 2017 death that was ruled a suicide. Investigators re-examined evidence from that death and “found discrepancies,” according to a Facebook post by the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff David West said Melton was interviewed and confessed to causing his girlfriend, 41-year-old Rhonda Lindley, to fatally overdose.
Melton was being held Monday afternoon in Cross County jail, an online inmate roster shows. No bail was listed.
Court records show Melton is charged with abusing a corpse and stealing unspecified property. Melton was already in custody Friday in the Cross County jail where he continues to be held on a charge of second-degree murder.