Jury selection begins Tuesday in murder trial

Prosecutors seeking death penalty against suspect in triple murder

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for a Forrest City man accused of murdering a woman and her two daughters nearly four years ago.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday, June 1, in the capital murder trial of Cordale LePaul Stacey.

Stacy was arrested in October 2017, after allegedly killing Nashae Williams, 38, and her children, Malayya Essah, 9, and Zhanaisa Williams, 6, at their apartment located at 221 Wolfe St., in Forrest City.

Stacy’s case has been continued several times since his arrest, with his original trial date scheduled for June last year. That trial was cancelled when court sessions were halted due to the Covid pandemic.

Court documents show officers were called to Williams’s apartment after neighbors reported hearing at least eight gunshots. Inside the apartment, officers found the mother’s body on the floor of her bedroom and the two young girls huddled together in the corner of a bedroom.

Neighbors told police that after hearing the gunshots, they saw a man running from the apartment.

Stacey later surrendered to police and has remained in custody at the St. Francis County Jail while awaiting trial.

Police also reported Stacey and Williams shared a child, who was two years old at the time of the murders.

Circuit court officials have set aside two weeks for the trial, over which Circuit Court Judge Chris Morledge will preside.

Stacey’s case will be the first murder trial to be heard by a jury in St. Francis County in several years.

Fred Conley • Times-Herald Sharon Norman, 6, and her younger sister Vivian Norman, 4, went for a cruise around their house in a battery powered, modified princess carriage Sunday afternoon. The two girls stayed in their yard circling their home while their father, former Forrest City Mustang basketball player, Torrey Norman who created the carriage for the two girls, watched.