Son admits he fatally stabbed dad in ’ 00

With credit for nearly 8 years in custody, killer’s parole eligibility 5 years away

More than 16 years after 45- year- old Harold Charles was found dead in his Little Rock home, his blood- spattered 2- year- old daughter nearby, Charles’ mentally ill son admitted to killing the man and accepted a 23- year prison sentence.

Harold Isiah Charles, 39, pleaded guilty Thursday to first- degree murder, reduced from capital murder, and first- degree terroristic threatening in exchange for the 23- year term, that will be followed with a 13- year suspended sentence.

The homicide went unsolved for more than 8 ½ years, until Harold Isiah Charles was charged with the slaying after confessing in July 2009.

He’d just been arrested by police for threatening his mother’s life in front of officers who had been called to Patricia Charles’ home to quell a disturbance.

Harold Isiah Charles, who has schizophrenia and a documented 17- year history of psychiatric troubles, later denied any involvement in his father’s killing, saying he made the story up for police so he could have a place to stay because he was homeless when he was arrested.

Charles has been in custody for 7 ½ years, mostly at the State Hospital where doctors worked to get his mental illness under control so they could determine whether he was sane when his father was killed.

They reported last June that he was competent to stand trial, almost four years after Harold Isiah Charles had last appeared in court.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson imposed the sentence Thursday at the recommendation of prosecutors, after the victim’s brother and sister begged him to order a harsher sentence for their nephew.

When a defendant pleads guilty, judges are not required to accept the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation but have the authority to impose whatever penalty they see fit.

Joy Springer and Larry Charles told the judge they were pleased that their nephew, their brother’s only son, had pleaded guilty.

But they were dismayed because he’s never apologized for killing their brother. And they were also angry, because given credit for the time he’s been in custody awaiting trial — 2,780 days, or slightly more than 7 ½ years — Harold Charles will serve only five years before he will be eligible to apply for early release.

The sentence is an injustice that puts the Charles family and the public in danger, Springer said.

“The record clearly shows he is a danger,” Springer, a longtime friend of the judge, testified.

Larry Charles said his nephew’s lack of remorse showed the younger man is still a risk to the public.

“I thought he was ready to repent and show remorse,” he told the judge. “If he hasn’t shown remorse, I think he’s a danger to society.”

The sentence requires a defendant to serve at least 13 years before qualifying for early release.

The decision to release Charles will be up to the Parole Board, the judge said, noting that neither he, prosecutors or defense attorneys had any control over whether Charles will be released on his first opportunity.

The judge also pointed out that the 13- year suspended sentence gives authorities the opportunity to send Charles back to prison for almost any crime.

Prosecutors John Johnson and Marianne Satterfield told the judge they try to take the concerns of victims’ families into consideration when deciding on punishment recommendations.

Johnson, the chief deputy, said prosecutors also tried to fully apprise them of the ramifications of the sentence.

“We try to give them the worst- case scenario,” the prosecutor told the judge. “We don’t want to promise them anything we can’t guarantee.”

Harold Charles, given the opportunity to address the court after the judge imposed the sentence, declined to speak. He gave a small wave to his supporters as guards took him out of the courtroom. His attorneys, Bret Qualls and Lott Rolfe IV, made no statement.

Charles was found competent to stand trial in June, four years after state doctors predicted he would likely never be sane enough to stand trial.

In an interview with doctors in April, Charles said he still hears voices but does not let them bother him or tell him what to do. He said after he initially rejected his schizophrenia diagnosis, he came to believe that he has the disorder because the voices had caused him so much trouble.

In a May 2012 hearing about his mental health, Charles told the judge he was battling demons to regain his place as king of Egypt. His lawyers put him on the witness stand to demonstrate the depths of his illness.

Charles also testified that he was being advised on how to fight the demons by actor Morgan Freeman, and that his victory would return him to the throne he had held millions of years earlier. It would also restore his magical powers over lightning and fire.

The elder Charles was found dead from stab wounds to his neck in the living room of his Warren Drive home two days after Thanksgiving in 2000. His toddler daughter was nearby. She was shaking uncontrollably, speckled with blood, dehydrated and wearing a dirty diaper.

The residence was in disarray, with police reporting signs of a struggle and evidence the front door had been forced open.

Police believe he had been dead two days before his body and the little girl were discovered.

The younger Charles was known by family members to have a contentious relationship with his father, and he had claimed to have been in a fight with the older man shortly before he was killed, according to court records.

During questioning the day after his father was found in November 2000, the younger Charles acknowledged that he had argued with his father, but said the dispute didn’t become physical. That account was contradicted by his father’s co- workers, who said Harold Charles Sr. told them his son had beaten him up. A possible motive was the senior Charles’ suspicion that his son was having an affair with his girlfriend.

Investigators couldn’t conduct a formal interview with the younger Charles until more than a month after the slaying because he’d checked himself into a psychiatric hospital over suicidal thoughts, records show. In that meeting, Charles denied killing his father, but acknowledged that he’d had sex with his father’s girlfriend, records show. Police weren’t able to prove that he had killed his father.

In 2009, Charles told police, he had made arrangements to meet his father at the elder man’s home under the pretense of apologizing, court records show.

Charles told officers that he went to the home with a steak knife and stabbed his father in the neck as they smoked a cigarette together. The elder man fought him, Charles told police, according to court records, describing how he sat on his father until the older man grew weak. Then he took a knife out of the kitchen and stabbed him in the throat again, according to records .

The little girl was asleep in her car seat nearby, Charles said, telling officers he faked signs of a break- in and took his father’s wallet to simulate a robbery, according to records.

Charles also said he inherited $ 200,000 from his father’s life insurance but had spent all of the money by the time he was arrested.