Man sentenced for role in fatal wreck

LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock man who caused a fatal car crash while fleeing police who wanted to question him about an earlier shooting was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday by a Pulaski County circuit judge who watched the fiery collision on patrol-car video.

The life sentence was mandatory for a repeat offender like 42-year-old Fredrick Levern Jones once Judge Wendell Griffen found him guilty of first-degree murder for the April 2020 crash that fatally injured 62-year- old Jose Carmen Hernandez and maimed Hernandez’s wife, Virginia. Jose Hernandez suffered a broken neck, fractured sternum and multiple rib fractures along with lacerations to his heart and spleen in the lunchtime collision at John Barrow Road and West 36th Street.

Prosecutors Barbara Mariani and Erin Stroman called the evidence against Jones “overwhelming,” with Mariani noting the judge “actually saw Mr. Hernandez murdered” due to police dash-cam video played at the one-day non-jury trial.

The judge similarly found Jones guilty of first-degree battery for Virginia Hernandez’s injuries as well as guilty of cocaine trafficking and gun possession charges stemming from discovery in Jones’ crash vehicle of drugs and firearms, a Remington shotgun and a Kel-Tec Sub 2000 semi-automatic rifle. The loaded rifle had been at Jones’ feet when he was pulled from the crashed vehicle, a blue 2006 Chrysler Town & Country minivan.

Jones’ arm and leg were broken in the crash, and he was hospitalized for two days before being transferred to jail.

Jones, whose criminal convictions for firearm possession, residential burglary, and drugs date back to when he was 17, did not testify. No witnesses were called, and Jones declined an opportunity to address the court before sentencing. His attorneys, Mac Carder and Andrew Thornton, described the collision as a “terrible, tragic accident” and apologized to the Hernandez’s family on Jones’ behalf.

Jones’ passenger, 46-yearold Keith Lashawn Wilder of Little Rock, testified he’d only been with Jones because he was supposed to be helping the younger man on a moving job. He told jurors he’d seen the shotgun in the van, and Jones told him he’d been hunting with the weapon the day before.

When Jones started to flee the police, Wilder said he was terrified and that Jones wouldn’t explain what was going on.

“I panicked and asked what was going on. He said, ‘Shut up,’” Wilder testified.

Wilder said he was struggling to remember what he’d seen that day and what he’d told police, and during cross examination testified that he couldn’t remember his criminal history, including spending time in prison on a 10-year sentence he received in October 2007 for robbery. A brain tumor affects his memory, Wilder told the judge, although the defense suggested his recollection deficiencies might be more selective than he’d led the judge to believe.

From patrol officer Cristian Gallegos, the judge heard about the struggle to free the Hernandezes from their crashed Toyota Sienna which had caught on fire.

As prosecutors showed the judge a photo of the cuts to his left arm that Gallegos suffered in the rescue, the officer described how the passenger door had been crushed in the collision, keeping him from reaching the couple because the driver’s side was on fire.

Gallegos said he used his baton to break open a rear passenger window to get the couple out. He said the car blew up seconds after Jose Hernandez, semi-conscious and unable to walk, was pulled from the wreck.

“The vehicle erupted,” Gallegos testif ied. “We dragged him [for] about five seconds and that’s when I heard the vehicle explode.”

According to testimony, Little Rock patrol officers had been told on the day of the crash to be on the lookout for Jones and his minivan because detectives wanted to question him about the shooting of an acquaintance, 71-year-old Thelton Smith of Little Rock, on 13th Street the day before.

Patrol officers caught up to Jones behind the wheel of the van at the intersection of 12th and Rodney Parham after Smith’s daughter, 43-year-old Montrel Shunta Smith, called to report seeing the vehicle.

The officers drew their guns to approach Jones but he drove off, eventually running a red light to collide with the Hernandezes.

Jones was charged with committing a terroristic act and first-degree battery in the Smith shooting, but prosecutors dropped those charges because of the life sentence he received for murder.