Report: Teen died from shot to head

A 17-year-old from North Little Rock found dead on June 25 died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to a newly obtained report from the Pulaski County coroner’s office.

Braylen Stone, a transgender teenager who went by Brayla, was found in a vehicle near Gap Creek Drive in Sherwood.

Prosecutors have charged a Sherwood teen, Trevone Hayse Miller, 19, with capital murder in Pulaski County Circuit Court in connection to Stone’s death.

In the coroner’s report, investigator Patrick McElroy wrote that police told him a person walking on the gravel path near Gap Creek Drive had found the vehicle and called police.

McElroy wrote that Stone’s upper body, including her torso, arms and head, were resting mostly on the floorboard near the front passenger seat of the black Saturn Vue, which displayed temporary Arkansas paper tags. Stone’s legs were resting on the backrest of the front passenger seat, McElroy wrote.

The glass of the driver’s

side door was broken, according to the report, and McElroy was told that when police opened the driver’s door, the broken glass fell to the ground.

Blood spatter was evident on the inside of the driver’s side door and the left handle of the driver’s seat, as well as areas around it, according to the report. There was also a knife in the bottom portion of the driver’s door, McElroy wrote.

Stone had an open defect to the left side of her skull — presumably from a gunshot wound — just behind her ear, as well as a “circular-appearing open defect” near her right ear canal, according to the report.

The investigator noted

that Stone’s body was warm to the touch and had “passing rigor mortis to the extremities.” The key to the vehicle was resting on the driver’s seat, according to the report.

The report listed the manner of death as homicide and the immediate cause as a gunshot wound to the head.

An attorney for Miller pleaded innocent on his client’s behalf during a teleconference proceeding before Judge Barry Sims on Tuesday. Miller has been held without bail in the Pulaski County jail since his arrest by Sherwood police on July 2, one week after Stone’s body was discovered.

Toney Brasuell, one of Miller’s attorneys, in an email last week denied the murder

allegation and wrote that attorneys will present a “vigorous defense.”

A Sherwood Police Department arrest report from July said witnesses reported to police that Miller told them he was going to kill Stone and later told them Stone was dead.

“Through investigation, witnesses stated Trevone Miller asked the victim to meet him so they could talk,” the arrest report said. “According to the witnesses, Trevone was the last person to see the victim.”

Stone’s death attracted considerable attention online in the days after the discovery of her body and a memorial vigil was held at a church in Little Rock on June 29.