Family, friends seek justice
Loved ones offer $25,000 reward in unsolved NLR murder. —
Earnest Kennedy received his nickname “Butch” as a child. The tag was originally “Butchy,” until he was old enough that it was thought the “Y” should be dropped, turning the moniker into a more dignified name.
There was no particular reason behind the nickname “Butch,” his daughter, Leslie Suggs, said, but it’s a name that stuck as Kennedy, who was born in 1949 in postwar Japan where his father was in the military, graduated from Jacksonville High School, joined the Marines and was shipped off to Vietnam, where he served from 1968 to 1970.
Back home in central Arkansas after the Vietnam War, Kennedy graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity, with a degree in accounting. He launched his accounting career, got married and started a family.
Along the way, he purchased a house on a wooded street in North Little Rock, where he lived for the next 35 years, working hard and raising children and then grandchildren.
But on the evening of May 28, 2014, Kennedy, 64, was found shot to death in his residence at 5721 N. Locust St. His murder remains unsolved.
“My dad was more than a victim,” Suggs said. “He was my dad. He was my brother’s dad. He was my uncle’s best friend. My grandmother is still alive and she’s had to endure this. He had grandkids who just thought he was the most wonderful man. I want people to know that is who he was and that is what was taken from us. He was a good person. He wasn’t doing any wrong. He has just become a victim of a violent crime, and I want to know why. I want to know who.”
According to the police report, an officer responded to Kennedy’s house at 9:56 p.m. May 28, where he found Kennedy with a “bloody head wound.” Metropolitan Emergency Medical Service paramedics arrived and said Kennedy was dead, the report states.
Scant other details on the murder are available. Kennedy had been shot, but no weapon was recovered. His wife got home and found him. Neighbors reported hearing no gunshot.
And that’s about it. More
than eight months after his murder, Kennedy’s death remains unsolved, one of only two open homicide investigations in North Little Rock from 2014.
Now, in an effort to solve Kennedy’s murder, family and friends, with the assistance of the North Little Rock Police Department and the Central Arkansas Crime Stoppers Program, are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Kennedy’s murder.
“There’s somebody out there who may not be affiliated with the case but heard something,” Suggs said. “Maybe somebody saw something. Maybe they think it’s not really significant, but I don’t want them to make that determination. Call the Police Department. However minute you might think it is, it may be huge. There’s $25,000 sitting there. We want to give it to someone. That’s why it’s there. Why not give it to the person who has the information that we need to get justice for my dad and closure for our family, which we so desperately need? $25,000 is a lot of money.”
Offering a reward for information in solving crimes is “very effective,” police spokesman Sgt. Brian Dedrick said, and investigators are “still actively investigating and following up on any tips” in Kennedy’s shooting.
“However, we always believe that the community is our No. 1 source even if no reward is offered,” he said. “We have a very good community that provides us information frequently.”
Suggs said she and her family were “thankful” for the work of the Police Department and fully supported it, but investigators “need that extra help.” Questions remain and with no answers there is no closure.
“I’m still in the grieving process,” Suggs said. “Since there’s not an arrest, I can’t properly do that.
“We do need closure. You really can’t start the grieving process when we don’t even really know what happened. Who did this? Why? Why would someone hurt my dad who would help anybody? He was just a good-hearted person. He would never hurt anybody.”
Kennedy’s friend, Larry Hammons, echoes Suggs’ words. Hammons, 65, first met Kennedy about 1966 or 1967 at a high school dance at the Marion Hotel in Little Rock. Hammons had his date, and Kennedy had his, and the couples sat at the same table that night.
“We had a good time, and him and I have been friends ever since,” Hammons said.
The two were tight, with Kennedy always handling Hammons’ finances, and they often ate out together.
“He’s the only CPA I ever had,” Hammons said. “It’s kind of unusual for a Marine, for a guy who went through the Vietnam War, but you would call him a pacifist if you met him. An all-around nice guy that you would never had thought something like this would happen to him.”
Kennedy’s favorite place to dine out was the Golden Corral on Warden Road in North Little Rock, and Hammons often joined him for meals there. Hammons said that Kennedy was “known by every waiter and manager in the store. He was there every day.”
The Golden Corral was part of Kennedy’s “triangle,” Suggs said, along with Kennedy’s office on McCain Boulevard where he operated his accounting business and his house.
“He literally woke up, went to work, and he would eat at Golden Corral, and he would go home,” Suggs said. “He was real excited when [Golden Corral] had the chocolate fountain. He called me and told me, ‘Leslie, you’re not going to believe this.’ I was like, ‘Dad, I have got to get you out in the world.’”
Beyond his love of Golden Corral, Kennedy also played poker with his friends, many whom he also helped with taxes and other accounting needs. He had a pug named Dodie, and thought everyone should have an animal. He told jokes and loved a good practical joke, even going so far as to wrap a box of rocks as a gag gift for Suggs’ birthday one year before presenting her with $100.
But mostly Kennedy worked. A lot. Even more during tax season. Working hard and earning money meant you could afford things in life, he told Suggs, even if it was simple things like meals at Golden Corral and poker nights with friends.
Gary Schumacher, 63, was one of those guys who played poker with Kennedy, before realizing that playing cards with an accountant was a bad bet. A friend for 22 years, Schumacher met Kennedy through a business partner.
“He’s a good guy,” Schumacher said. “A good, caring guy. Everybody liked Butch. He loved his kids a ton. It’d be wonderful if we could pay that reward out.”
Although Kennedy’s nickname was “Butch,” and he was a Vietnam War veteran, earning rifle expert and pistol marksmanship badges, Suggs never saw her father as that guy. That’s not who he was to her. He was tenderhearted. Sensitive. A man with a “quirky personality” but a “cool guy.”
“I didn’t see him as the Marine,” she said. “I couldn’t believe my dad was a Marine. He was just my little-bitty dad who was an accountant and worked all the time.”
That’s the man who was murdered, and Suggs, family, friends and police want to find the person responsible. Suggs is hoping that someone, somewhere knows something. And perhaps that little bit of information will lead to the arrest of Kennedy’s murderer.
“He is not a person who you would think this would happen to,” Suggs said. “The reward is sitting there. We need information. It’s been eight months. Please, please, just pick up the phone. It’s sitting there waiting to be collected.”