Pair sentenced in fatal attack

Husband draws 40 years; wife to serve 6 on probation

A 35-year-old Searcy man was sentenced to 40 years in prison for fatally stabbing the man who was fighting with his wife at a Jacksonville night club.

Arthur Lee Lockhart Jr. pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the March 2014 killing of 28-year-old Steven Thomas Miller of Cabot.

Prosecutors dropped a tampering-with-evidence charge in exchange for his guilty plea.

Court records show Lockhart was on parole at the time for convictions in White County for aggravated assault, felon in possession of a firearm, drug possession and tampering with evidence. He also was previously convicted for second-degree battery and robbery.

Lockhart’s wife, Tere Rowshell Lockhart, pleaded guilty to second-degree battery for striking Miller and was sentenced to six years on probation.

In exchange for her guilty plea, prosecutors dropped the murder charge against her.

The couple pleaded guilty on Sept. 8 in Pulaski County Circuit Court. They had been scheduled for trial this week.

Miller died about an hour after Jacksonville police, responding to complaints about a fight, found him with stab wounds, unconscious and barely breathing outside The Hangar club on John Harden Drive on March 2, 2014.

According to arrest reports, Tere Lockhart told police she was in the parking lot, leaving the club, when a stranger called her a racial slur.

She had blood on her hands and clothes and told police that she hit the man twice with her shoe but did not see anyone else attack him.

In a separate interview, Arthur Lockhart, who had blood on his clothes, told police that he saw Miller fighting with his wife and tried to pull the man away from her, arrest reports show.

He denied having a knife or attacking Miller, but said he would take the blame if police released his wife.

When detectives told him they both would be arrested, Lockhart said he stabbed Miller two or three times, according to an arrest report.