District Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington announces:
On Friday, December 8, 2016, an Osceola District, Mississippi County, jury convicted Terrell Harrell, 25, of Luxora, Ark., for the March 2, 2015 Aggravated Robbery and Kidnapping of Robert Birmingham, 68, also of Luxora, and a decorated disabled Vietnam veteran.
Ellington credited the great investigative work of Chief Albert Wright of the Luxora Police Department and Sergeant Brice Hicks of the Mississippi County Sheriff’s Department for their work as lead investigators. Ellington said Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys Catherine P. Dean and Keith Chrestman represented the State.
“It is our job to protect the weak and disabled from those predators who prey on them,” Ellington said. “This case is more egregious because they knew Mr. Birmingham was a disabled veteran.”
The jury also convicted Harrell of Battery in the Second Degree, Theft of a Firearm and Fraudulent Use of a Credit Card. Circuit Judge Dan Ritchey sentenced the Defendant to 30 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
Birmingham was asleep in his bed after having suffered a stroke and paralysis of his right arm and leg which had left him wheelchair-bound when Harrell and a co-defendant broke into his home after midnight, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and stabbed Birmingham while attempting to gain entry into a safe. Unable to open the safe, Harrell and his co-defendant dragged and stuffed Birmingham in the back seat of his own truck and held him captive at gunpoint while they drove from Luxora, through Marion and along Interstate 40 for hours. Law Enforcement agencies including the Luxora Police, Mississippi County Sheriff’s, and Little Rock Police Departments, along with the Arkansas State Police, working in concert ultimately located Birmingham in his vehicle, dressed only in his boxer shorts, in Little Rock where he was treated and released from the VA.
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