Jury selection continues in capital murder trial

Attorneys on Tuesday began trying to seat 12 jurors to hear the first capital murder case to be tried in St. Francis County in several years.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the trial of Cordale LaPaul Stacy.

Stacy, 34, is accused in the October 2017 deaths of Nashae Williams, 38, and her daughters, Malayya Essah, 9, and Zhanaisa Williams, 6, who were murdered inside their apartment on Wolfe Street in Forrest City.

On Tuesday, potential jurors were interviewed, but none were seated, according to court officials, who added that jurors would continue to be interviewed this week until 12 jurors and two alternates are selected to hear the case.

Two weeks have been set aside in SFC Circuit Court for the trial, over which Circuit Court Judge Christopher Morledge is presiding.

Stacy’s trial was originally scheduled for June last year, but had to be postponed due to the Covid pandemic.

According to Forrest City Police Department reports, officers were called to the apartment after neighbors reported hearing at least eight gunshots. Inside, they found the mother’s body on the floor of her bedroom with numerous gunshot wounds to her upper torso. The two young girls were found huddled together in the corner of a bedroom.

Neighbors told police they first heard six gunshots coming from the apartment, followed by children crying, before hearing two more gunshots and seeing a man running from the apartment. At the encouragement of his mother, Stacey surrendered to police the day after the murders.

According to police, Stacey and Williams also had a two-year-old child together, who was not present at the time of the murders.

Stacy is no stranger to the criminal system.

In 2013, he was sentenced in St. Francis County to three years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections on an amended charge of aggravated assault, which actually combined two cases of various charges for drugs and firearms, according to online court records.