4th suspect in ’20 shooting gets 7-year term
HOT SPRINGS — The fourth suspect involved in the fatal 2020 shooting of a local man was sentenced to seven years in prison Monday after pleading guilty in Garland County Circuit Court to his role helping dispose of the victim’s body.
Dakota Lee White, 20, of Hot Springs pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, Garland County Deputy Prosecutor Mallory Floyd told The Sentinel-Record Tuesday.
A third felony count of theft by receiving of a firearm, stemming from the gun used in the shooting being in White’s possession, was withdrawn as part of the plea agreement, Floyd said.
The actual shooter, Robert Krah, 18, pleaded guilty on Sept. 9 to manslaughter for the July 28, 2020, death of Christopher Lee Jennings, 20, of Hot Springs. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
He also pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse and was sentenced to six years on each count, to run concurrently.
Logan Chase Snyder, 20, of Hot Springs, pleaded guilty on Feb. 22 to the same charges as White and was sentenced to eight years for abuse of a corpse and six years for tampering with evidence, to run concurrently.
John George Liapis, 19, pleaded guilty on Jan. 24 to the same charges as White and Snyder and was sentenced to eight years in prison, but also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and terroristic threatening for threatening a female witness at gunpoint and was sentenced to six years on each count, all to run concurrently.
The case of the fifth and final suspect, Donald Stone Ritchey, 21, who is facing the same charges as White and Snyder, is still pending, Floyd said. All five suspects were arrested on Aug. 26, 2020.
Jennings was reportedly last seen on July 27, 2020, at the Mason Street home of Liapis, and was reported missing on Aug. 12, 2020, by his mother after she received text messages stating her son was dead, according to affidavits.
The next day, Liapis told Hot Springs police he had last seen Jennings on July 28, noting he had been at Liapis’ residence but left that afternoon and hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
On Aug. 14, police spoke to witnesses who said Jennings had been killed and buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atkins. Pope County sheriff’s investigators and Arkansas State Police were notified and located a body “wrapped in plastic buried in a shallow grave,” who was later identified as Jennings.
Krah told police on July 28 he was at the Mason Street house “hanging out with friends,” and Jennings was “playing around with a gun.” He said he told him a few times to stop and finally Jennings handed the gun to him. Krah said as he took the gun it “went off” and struck Jennings.
Other witnesses said Krah was “dancing and waving the gun around when it discharged and killed (Jennings).”
White told police he was at the residence in a backroom when he “heard a loud pop.” He said he walked into the living room and saw Jennings bleeding from the head with a gunshot wound. He said everyone “freaked out” and wrapped Jennings in plastic. Then he helped load Jennings into the back of his 2003 Ford Explorer and he and Liapis drove to Atkins where they buried him at the rear of Oakland Cemetery.
White said he, Krah, Snyder and Ritchey returned two days later and moved Jennings further into the woods “into another hole they dug.” He said the gun used, a .45-caliber handgun, was in the possession of his father, who turned it over to police. A computer check showed it had been reported stolen in Conway on March 22.