A 67-year-old woman on trial for capital murder in the death of a fellow square dancer was described by a Miller County prosecutor Tuesday as a calculating woman driven by rage, jealousy and desperation.
Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Black told the jury that Virginia Ann Hyatt's husband, James Hyatt, decided to file for divorce after 40 years of marriage because life had become intolerable. Black said James Hyatt waited until his wife left the couple's home on Pineview Street in Texarkana, Ark., for a routine visit to her mother's nursing home before he hurriedly packed a few belongings and headed to his sister's home in Florida the day before Patricia "Patti" Wheelington, 59, was shot five times on her front porch.
"He was afraid of what she might do to him. It was the possessive, obsessive nature of Virginia Hyatt," Black said. "They slept in separate bedrooms and he locked his door at night."
Black said the Hyatts hadn't been intimate in 10 years and that Virginia Hyatt's disturbing reactions to other women, particularly Wheelington, made the couple's problems reach a crescendo.
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," Black said, quoting a 17th-century poet as he addressed the jury. "She was obsessed and convinced that Patti Wheelington is responsible for her losing her husband, but James Hyatt was going to leave her anyway, even if he'd never met Patti."
Black told the jury the Hyatts and Wheelington became friends years before the murder, when James Hyatt worked to build Wheelington and her husband's home on South Valley Road. Wheelington's husband died of an illness about a year before the shooting, Black said. They remained friends and were members of the Guys and Dolls Square Dancing Club in Texarkana.
Black said Virginia Hyatt went to Wheelington's home on Dec. 2, 2013, a few days after James Hyatt left, looking for her husband, whom she believed wouldn't answer her calls. Wheelington told friends Hyatt insisted her husband was there and wouldn't leave until Wheelington called him over and put him on the phone. . That evening, Hyatt confronted Wheelington again at a square dance, Black said.
Black said Wheelington and her friends were so concerned about Hyatt's behavior that they were afraid to let her go home after the dance.
"But Patti said, 'I'm not going to run from anybody.'' She was a very friendly person and thought she could talk to anybody," Black said. "Her friends warned her not to open the door if Virginia came back."
Texarkana lawyer John Pickett argued that the state cannot prove Hyatt killed Wheelington, much less that she did it with premeditation, as is required for a capital murder conviction.
"There is no evidence that she shot and killed Patricia Wheelington on the morning of Dec. 3, 2013," Pickett said. "There is suspicion here, there is speculation here, a lot of conjecture here, but there's no proof. There's no evidence here."
Pickett told the jury that gunshot residue found on clothing in Hyatt's bedroom is not enough to convict in the absence of other physical evidence. He added that police were unable to find the .38-caliber pistol from which the shots that killed Wheelington were fired, and no DNA or blood evidence links Hyatt to the murder.
Pickett argued that the state rushed to arrest a suspect without conducting a thorough investigation.
"Less than 24 hours after Patti Wheelington's death on Dec. 3, they're arresting Virginia Hyatt for the most serious crime in the state of Arkansas. They don't wait for reports from the crime lab. They don't need them. Their mind is made up," Pickett said.
The jury may not hear testimony as to why investigators were so quickly able to identify Hyatt as a suspect. Circuit Judge Randy Wright ruled Tuesday that Detective Shane Kirkland could not tell the jury about his interview with Ken Caldwell, a close friend of Wheelington's who was the last person to speak to her on the phone.
Caldwell died of illness shortly after Wheelington's murder, and his statements were not videotaped. Caldwell was talking to Wheelington when she told him Hyatt was coming up her driveway, according to a probable cause affidavit. Caldwell tried repeatedly to reach Wheelington throughout the day and alerted other friends about his concern, the affidavit states.
Police officers are typically allowed to testify what they learned from witnesses and how the information led investigators, but Wright ruled the testimony inadmissible because Caldwell isn't alive to testify himself.
Black said that Caldwell's calls to friends led two women to Wheelington's home in the late afternoon. kBlack said. , They discovered Wheelington's body on her front porch in a bathrobe.
Crime Scene Investigator Mark Sillivan testified under questioning from Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Black as photos of the crime scene were shown to the jury. Wheelington's right leg was bent, knee up, her foot against an exterior door from the porch to the kitchen. Her right arm was stretched above her head, a half-burned cigarette still perched between two fingers. On a small wooden table between two swivel chairs was a bright yellow coffee mug, a pack of cigarettes, an ashtray and a cellphone.
Sillivan said it appears Wheelington was shot as she sat in her chair and four more bullets entered her forearm and chest as she tried to reach the door, stopping her where she stood.
One shot was fired at such close range that soot from the gunshot was apparent on Wheelington's face, Sillivan said.
Wheelington's neighbors testified they heard five shots ring out at around 8 a.m., but thought it was just a homeowner attempting to scare away geese or deer. Chuck Black told the jury that Hyatt claimed she was at McDonald's buying her convalescent mother a sausage biscuit at the time, but video surveillance footage puts her in the drive-thru much later.
Testimony is expected to continue this morning at the Miller County Courthouse. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, which means Hyatt faces life without the possibility of parole if found guilty of capital murder.