Murder trial verdict expected this morning
A Miller County jury is expected to return to court Thursday morning to continue deliberations in the trial of a man accused of stabbing a friend to death in a pickup truck last year.
The fiveman, seven-woman jury tasked with deciding whether Cameron Scott “Fishman” Halliburton, 29, is guilty in the death of Jarrod Klein deliberated about two hours Wednesday before telling Circuit Judge Carlton Jones they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Jones gave the jury the option of taking a dinner break and continuing deliberations or taking an evening recess and returning to court to continue discussing the case in the morning. The jury chose to go home for the night.
Klein, 27, was found still belted in behind the wheel of his Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck in the early morning hours of Nov. 26, 2017, by a Texarkana, Ark., police officer responding to a call concerning a possible one-vehicle wreck. The pickup was in park, the keys were missing and it had come to rest against a tree. Texarkana, Ark., detectives testified that the truck traveled from the direction of Jefferson Avenue and across
the parking lot of Family Dollar Store on Ninth Street before jumping a curb onto Linden Street, crossing it and hitting the tree.
The jury was shown surveillance video from the Family Dollar which showed the truck travel across the parking lot, nearly missing the building, at about 1:30 a.m. Approximately 10 minutes later Halliburton stumbles into the camera’s view in the parking lot. Halliburton appears unsteady on his feet as he pulls at the store’s door and then walks off.
Klein had been stabbed a total of 10 times. Seven stabs wounds to Klein’s neck were inflicted after he had suffered a fatal wound to his chest that caused massive internal bleeding and a rapid loss of consciousness, Medical Examiner Stephen Erickson testified Tuesday. His body was found at about 3:30 a.m. Nov. 26, 2017.
Using a receipt found in the truck, investigators were able to track down friends who had socialized with Halliburton and Klein earlier in the day. When they found Halliburton sleeping behind a dumpster at a small Texarkana, Texas, apartment complex not far from the site of the crash, Halliburton was wearing the same clothes as in the surveillance video. The knife sheath on Halliburton’s belt which usually held a filet knife was empty. The murder weapon and Klein’s truck keys were never recovered.
Experts testified that blood on the sleeve of Halliburton’s jacket was Klein’s. Curtis Flowers, a friend of Halliburton’s, testified that Halliburton stopped by his home in the early hours of Nov. 26, 2017, and claimed that he had stabbed Klein to death. Flowers said Halliburton told him that he and Klein were in a hotel room and that he had stabbed Klein after Klein started punching him in his sleep.
Detective Wayne Easley testified that Halliburton repeatedly changed his story when confronted with evidence in the case. Others on whom Halliburton attempted to cast blame had alibis which were confirmed by police through video surveillance, Easley testified.
During closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Potter Barrett told the jury that the state did not have to espouse a clear motive to prove murder. Witnesses testified that the men had used synthetic marijuana that day and when investigators found Halliburton behind the dumpster sleeping, he had synthetic marijuana in his hand.
Barrett theorized that the two men had gotten into an argument, perhaps over drugs, and that Halliburton had stabbed Klein to death. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kristian Robertson reminded the jury that seven stab wounds to Klein’s neck were sustained while Klein was dying from the stab wound to his chest that cut his aorta.
Managing Public Defender Jason Mitchell dismissed Halliburton’s constantly changing account to investigators as the flawed memory of a drug user who’d experienced a traumatic event and mused that there might have been a third person in Halliburton’s truck.
Barrett pointed out to the jury that Halliburton confessed to Flowers and lied about being dropped off by Klein around midnight when first questioned and lied again about where and with whom he was during the night.
The jury is expected to continue deliberations Thursday morning at the Miller County courthouse. If convicted of first-degree murder, Halliburton faces 10 to 40 years or life in an Arkansas prison.