PARAGOULD, Ark. – One of the four involved in the brutal robbery and murder of a Lorado grocery store clerk will go to prison for five years.
Tracy Stone, 45, of Paragould, was sentenced Tuesday to 60 months in the Arkansas Department of Correction for hindering apprehension of three charged with the murder of Stacy Quintana – the grocery store manager at Lorado Grocery and Feed.
Stone took a plea deal, avoiding a trial but guaranteeing she will serve five years for her role in the deadly plot.
Stacy Quintana was the estranged-wife of Charles Quintana, 58, of Paragould. Charles, along with Darrell Swan, 53 and Stacy Keplinger, 36, all of Paragould, hatched a murder-for-hire plot on Dec. 23, 2015, in which Keplinger pretended to rob the victim, then shot her to death in the parking lot before getting into a vehicle with Swan and fleeing. A nearby responding constable arrested the duo and with the help of Greene County Sheriff David Carter, later arrested Charles.
The late Stacy Quintana’s sister, Angela Pugsley, described Stone’s testimony Tuesday.
“She pretty much said that it started out as a robbery and Darrell Swan, Stacy Keplinger and Charles (Quintana) were all involved and one of them said well they can kill two birds with one stone by doing that,” Pugsley said. “But she made it sound like she wasn’t involved with him and they were just friends.”
Pugsley gave a victim impact statement Tuesday, describing how the loss of her sister had impacted her life as well as the victim’s surviving children.
“I did make eye contact with her and to me she showed no remorse or sympathy,” Pugsley said. “The only thing that did come out of it to me was that she did implicate the other three as the organizing this crime to be done. She said she knew about it but she didn’t think they’d really go through with it.”
Charles Quintana and Keplinger are expected to be in court next on January 25 with a trial expected on or around February 6. Swann is also expected to be in court at the same time, according to the circuit clerk’s office.
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