2 men convicted of conspiring in ’16 death of federal witness

After about 6½ hours of deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women returned verdicts of guilty on all counts in the trial of two men accused of conspiring to kill a federal witness in 2016 in Malvern.

Donald Smith, 37, of Malvern and Samuel Sherman, 38, of Batesville stood trial on several charges in the 2016 shooting death of 44-year-old Suzen Cooper.

A 2019 indictment charged the men with conspiracy to cause witness tampering resulting in death. In addition, the indictment charged Smith with witness tampering resulting in death, conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, and of aiding and abetting the use, carry and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.

When the verdicts were announced just after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, several members of Cooper’s family who were in attendance burst into tears and one left the courtroom for several minutes before returning. Smith and Sherman sat impassively with their hands folded in front of them as the verdicts were read, neither man displaying any reaction.

In summing up the government’s case during closing statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner outlined a flurry of phone calls and texts between Racheal Cooper, Suzen Cooper’s former sister-in-law; Smith; Sherman; and others in the overnight hours of Sept. 26 and 27, 2016, the night Suzen Cooper was shot to death and buried in a field along Grigsby Ford Road just outside of Malvern. She said Smith had been texting on his phone up until the moment he pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and shot Suzen Cooper four times in the back and once in the head, killing her.

“That’s when the phone went in his pocket, and the gun came out,” Gardner said.

After Suzen Cooper was dead, Gardner said, Smith en

listed the help of Jimmy Porter, who she said purchased methamphetamine from Smith and who owned the property where her body was found buried two years later. She said Porter was the one who eventually led police to the grave site.

“Suzen Cooper’s body was exactly where Jimmy Porter said it would be,” Gardner said. “The only two people who knew where Suzen Cooper’s body was were Donald Smith and Jimmy Porter.”

Gardner said Racheal Cooper, Smith and Sherman were involved in a drug distribution conspiracy and that “Smith killed Cooper to preserve that conspiracy.”

She said Racheal Cooper contacted her former sister-in-law to set up a drug deal as a ruse to convince the woman to go with her that night, and that she drove Suzen Cooper to the Grigsby Ford Road location pre-arranged by herself and Smith.

Annie Depper, co-counsel with Blake Hendrix for Smith’s defense, said the government’s case was based on unreliable evidence.

“There is no physical evidence connecting Donald to these crimes,” Depper said. “It is the government’s burden to prove Don’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. … This case is full of reasonable doubt.”

Depper said the four primary witnesses, Racheal Cooper, Jimmy Porter, Parris Davis and Jason Frazier, all had reason to lie.

Racheal Cooper, she said, was originally charged with capital murder in Hot Spring County in the case and later pleaded down to a charge of hindering apprehension, for which she served five years of a 25-year sentence.

“What does she do to get out of that?” Depper asked. “She pins it on somebody else.”

She said Porter waited two years before he led police to the location of Suzen Cooper’s body.

“When Jimmy Porter was first interviewed, what did he say?” she asked. “Don’t know anything about it. … Later, after a $20,000 reward is posted, Jimmy Porter comes forward.”

Of Davis, Smith’s ex-girlfriend who testified against him, Depper said her motivation was money and revenge, and of Frazier, she said he was only trolling for any information that might help him get out of prison or land a lighter sentence.

“A jailhouse snitch is out there doing whatever it takes to help themselves,” she said.

Depper said when investigators began to home in on Smith they overlooked other possible suspects, including several whom she said had issued direct threats to Suzen Cooper.

“The government had tunnel vision toward Don Smith from the get-go,” she said. “They had no physical evidence, and they ignored numerous other people.”

George Morledge IV, who shared defense duties for Sherman with Jeff Rosenzweig, said the government had failed to connect Sherman to the murder.

“There’s no proof, none whatsoever,” Morledge said.

He said the government’s exhibits alleging that Smith drove to Batesville the day before the murder and that Sherman drove to Malvern the day of the murder were “speculative at best.”

As for the assertion that Sherman had Suzen Cooper killed to keep her from testifying against him in a 2014 drug case, he said Sherman had already planned to plead guilty and had even told his children he would be going to jail and had started teaching his wife how to drive the dump truck at his business.

“Why in God’s name would you tell your children you’re going to prison if you have no intention of doing any such thing?” he asked. “Why would you go to such a ruse if you have no intention of going to jail?”

After the verdict, Rosenzweig said he and Morledge plan to appeal Sherman’s conviction on a couple of issues, one being severance. Rosenzweig and Morledge tried unsuccessfully to have Sherman’s case severed from Smith’s, saying the evidence against Smith was so voluminous that it threatened to overshadow their client.

Rosenzweig said, “Our position was the sheer amount of Smith-only evidence was going to bleed into Sherman. That will be an issue to be decided by the 8th Circuit.”

In addition, Rosenzweig said, he questions whether some statement attributed to Suzen Cooper that were admitted into the trial went beyond the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to confront one’s accusers.

“Those are interesting legal issues that will have to be sorted out,” he said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross said in addition to securing justice for Suzen Cooper, the verdicts should serve to send a message to others.

“Anytime any witness in a federal case is murdered, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the law enforcement authorities in our office will spare no effort to make sure the matters are fully and fairly investigated and the perpetrators will be held accountable,” Ross said.

Marshall told Smith and Sherman that he will set a sentencing hearing at a later date. Although the crime of witness tampering resulting in death is a capital crime, the U.S. attorney’s office filed a motion earlier this year to take the death penalty off the table, a decision Ross said was made in Washington, D.C.

The maximum sentence each man may receive is life in prison.