Grieving family pleads for tips in 2018 slaying

One year and three months after a woman was shot to death while holding her 5-year-old daughter in Pulaski County, investigators and family members asked again for the community’s help in identifying her killer.

On Jan. 19, 2018, April Harris, 30, was getting her four children ready for school. She held the girl in her arms as she walked down the stairs of the Fairfax Crossing apartment complex just outside North Little Rock.

A man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask walked up to her, shot her daughter in the arm and shot Harris in the head, killing her in front of her children.

“I think the safest place for a 5-year-old child is in the arms of their mother,” Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins said Friday during a news conference. “To have that child not only be injured, but to witness their mother being killed — that’s tragic. There’s nothing we can do to bring Ms. Harris back.”

Even people in the apartment complex who saw something they believe to be insignificant or small could help investigators, he said.

“Come forward,” the sheriff said. “If not for April Harris, then come forward for her children.”

In the months since Harris’ death, her mother, Tammie Fleming, has asked again

and again for the community’s help.

Fleming, who now cares for her daughter’s four children, sat in the crowd at the news conference among family members who were there to support her as investigators explained details of the case.

Next to the podium from which investigators and department leaders spoke was a table with pictures of Harris. In one photo, Harris stands before an ocean with hair piled neatly on her head and wearing bluejeans and a white tank top. The sides of her mouth curl slightly in a small smile.

When Fleming took her turn behind the lectern in the Pulaski County sheriff’s office, she spoke softly, asking for anyone with information to come forward.

After the news conference, she sat patiently with three reporters, each with questions about the daughter she lost.

She talked about what she missed most about Harris, about the pain that she still feels and praised the sheriff’s office for helping her as she grieves. Holding a crumpled tissue in her hands, she smiled when reporters said they had to leave.

“Sometimes I wake up and I say, ‘Unbelievable. She can’t really be gone,’” Fleming said. “That’s where prayer comes in. You have to have people around you; people you can talk to. But what you really have to have is a relationship with God.”

Investigator Chris Lowry, the lead detective on Harris’ case, called Fleming on the one-year anniversary of her daughter’s death.

“He just wanted me to know he was thinking about us,” she said. “We talk all the time. You can tell he’s compassionate. He’s meant for the job he has.”

Lowry, who spoke from the podium only briefly Friday, later spoke at length with reporters and greeted each of Fleming’s family members.

Lowry said he knows that someone has the information to link the investigators’ leads and that he hopes that person steps forward.

The sheriff’s office is also asking that anyone who would like to contribute to the reward for information — currently at $10,000 — do so to help the family find peace.

The hope, he said, is that an increased reward will encourage people to offer tips.

“We’re not talking about something small here,” Lowry said. “This is as big as it gets.”

The information line for the Pulaski County sheriff’s office is (501) 340-8477.