Affidavit: DNA links felon to 2 killed, set afire

Little Rock police detectives linked a parolee’s DNA to two women who were killed and set ablaze in June, according to affidavits released Monday.

Anthony Brooks, 27, was arrested Friday on two first-degree murder warrants after police say he killed Gloria Summage, 50, and Amy May Hughett, 31, and set them on fire eight days apart. A Little Rock District Court judge Monday set his bail at $500,000.

Detectives reportedly pieced together witness statements and surveillance footage to identify Brooks as a suspect in the killings. DNA samples from the two women obtained by investigators were “consistent” with Brooks’ DNA, the affidavits state.

On June 19, Brooks showed up at Summage’s home at 1909 E. Eighth St. and asked for some whiskey, according to a witness account in the affidavit. When she refused him, Brooks grabbed the beer she was drinking, spurring an argument between the two, the affidavit says.

According to the witness, who is listed in the affidavit as “Witness #1,” Summage claimed that Brooks never bought any liquor and “always want[s] to watch pornographic movies when he comes over.”

The dispute between Brooks and Summage grew so heated, the affidavit says,

that others at the home got involved in it. But those other people, who weren’t named in the affidavit, eventually left and reported last seeing Summage standing at her front door.

About an hour after leaving, they learned that her house was on fire, according to the affidavit.

Another man, listed in the affidavit as “Witness #2,” identified Brooks in a photo lineup as the man walking away from Summage’s home just before the fire that night, the affidavit says. The witness said in the affidavit that Brooks, wearing a white shirt and black shorts, was walking nearly three blocks from the home on Sixth Street, then he cut into a field and hid behind a tree.

When Brooks spotted the male witness, the affidavit says, Brooks pulled his shirt over his head and ran to a nearby store while at the same time looking back at the witness. Shortly afterward, the witness said, he saw the flames from Summage’s home.

Fire crews arrived at the home at 11:50 p.m. and found Summage’s body on the kitchen floor after they extinguished the blaze. Her torso had several stab wounds and she was dead before the fire, which was set in multiple spots throughout the house, officials have said.

Apartment-building surveillance video shows Brooks entering his sister’s apartment on Geyer Street — about 1.2 miles from Summage’s house — just before midnight, police said.

The next day, Brooks, wearing similar clothing as the night before, went to the Police Department at his mother’s behest and talked to detectives, the affidavit says. He grew upset and confrontational when detectives asked where he was the day before and refused to talk, leaving with his mother after detectives took his picture, the affidavit says.

About 6:20 a.m. June 27, fire crews were called to 5115 Young Road where they found Hughett’s body amid a pile of burning tires behind a storage facility. When detectives got there, they smelled “a strong odor” of gasoline, an affidavit states.

“The circumstances of Hughett’s death were similar to the death of Ms. Gloria Summage,” the document says, but it didn’t elaborate. Police have not released the cause of Hughett’s death, but have said she, too, died before the fire was set.

Detectives learned that Brooks’ mother had picked him up near a Church’s Chicken restaurant and a Hess gas station on Geyer Springs Road about 2:20 a.m., just a block from the tire fire, and had driven to her boyfriend’s home, the affidavit states.

Brooks then threatened to stab his mother and her boyfriend if they tried to stop him from taking the boyfriend’s sport utility vehicle, the affidavit says. Brooks left the boyfriend’s home, and video footage from his sister’s apartment building shows him arriving there about 4:20 a.m. and leaving shortly after, the affidavit says.

He returned minutes later, and footage shows the SUV and a trailing vehicle leaving about 4:45 a.m., the affidavit states.

Later, when his mother picked up the SUV at his sister’s apartment building, she said “it smelled strongly of gas,” the affidavit says. Her boyfriend allowed officers to search the SUV, which had what was determined to be blood on the passenger-side seat, door handle and running board, and “swipe marks” from a cleaning attempt, the affidavit says.

Investigators towed the SUV to the police impound yard. While the vehicle reeked of gasoline, there was no gasoline container inside, the affidavit says. Detectives found a screwdriver in the SUV, and collected it along with blood and DNA evidence, the affidavit says.

Detectives then arrested Brooks at a home in the 200 block of West 18th Street in North Little Rock.

“Brooks had fresh cuts on his hands, and there was apparent blood on his shirt,” the affidavit states.

He was arrested June 28 on a terroristic threatening charge — accused of threatening his mother — and was taken to the Pulaski County jail.

On Thursday, detectives learned from laboratory reports that “a mixture of DNA” was found on fingernail clippings from Summage’s right hand and in vaginal swabs that linked Brooks to the stabbing, the affidavit said. Also, DNA testing of vaginal swabs indicated that Hughett was the passenger in the SUV that Brooks took from his mother’s boyfriend, the affidavit states.

In March, Brooks was released on parole after serving about 6 ½ years of a 10-year prison sentence, prison officials have said.

In August 2003, he was sentenced to 72 months in prison for first-degree escape and property theft charges, but was paroled in February 2005. Seven months later, Brooks was sentenced to 10 years on aggravated robbery and two counts of property-theft charges. He was paroled four months ago.

He was considered to be on active supervision and had been reporting to his parole officer, Department of Community Correction Interim Director Sheila Sharp has said.

Brooks has had numerous stints in county lockups, including one in March 2005. In that case, Brooks “was on some type of narcotic” and “out of control,” a police report states.

He ran toward a woman and tried to hit her, but an officer at the scene grabbed Brooks’ right arm and attempted to force Brooks to the ground, the report states. Brooks fought with the officer and another at the scene, punching one in the head and trying to grab the gun from the holster of the other, police said.

Officers pepper-sprayed Brooks to gain control of him, and he was arrested and charged with second-degree battery and resisting arrest.