Two men have convicted of conspiring to kill a federal witness in Arkansas in 2016.
A federal jury deliberated for about 6 1/2 hours before delivering the verdicts Tuesday against Donald Smith, 37, of Malvern, and Samuel Sherman, 38, of Batesville, in the shooting death of 44-year-old Suzen Cooper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
Prosecutors alleged that Smith, Sherman and Suzen Cooper’s former sister-in-law, Racheal Cooper, conspired to sell methamphetamine and cocaine and that Cooper was a confidential informant who had purchased meth from Sherman.
Racheal Cooper was originally charged with capital murder in Hot Spring County but later pleaded guilty to a charge of hindering apprehension, for which she served five years of a 25-year sentence.
Smith and Sherman face up to life in prison after being convicted of federal charges of witness tampering resulting in death, conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, and of aiding and abetting the use, carry and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. A sentencing hearing has not yet been set.
The night Suzen Cooper was killed, Smith enlisted the help of a man who bought meth from him and who owned the properly where authorities found Cooper’s body two years later, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner.
Porter led the police to the grave site, Gardner said.
“Suzen Cooper’s body was exactly where Jimmy Porter said it would be,” Gardner said. “The only two people who knew where Suzen Cooper’s body was were Donald Smith and Jimmy Porter.”
Annie Depper, an attorney for Smith, told jurors that all of the primary witnesses in the case had reason to lie.
“There is no physical evidence connecting Donald to these crimes,” Depper said.
George Morledge IV, an attorney for Sherman, also said the government had failed to connect his client to the slaying.
“There’s no proof, none whatsoever,” Morledge said.
