Little Rock -- Capital Murder, Aggravated Assault and Assault (2 incidents)        Erik Bullock did not want the baby his girlfriend, Shawana Pace, was carrying. So he hired three thugs to beat her up and kill her baby. The thugs kicked her repeatedly in the belly and killed her baby, which was almost full-term.        Pace, who was due to give birth any day, pleaded for the baby's life as she was kicked, choked and hit on August 26, 1999. One of the attackers told her "Your baby is dying tonight."        Pace saw her dead child and named the little girl Heaven. "She was a perfect baby, almost 7 pounds. It was like she was just sleeping," Pace said in her hospital room, where she was recovering from surgery to remove her spleen. She also suffered a broken left wrist, black eye and bruised face.        Police said Bullock hired three of his friends -- Eric Beulah, Derrick Witherspoon and Lonnie Beulah -- to stage a `robbery' at his house. Police said all three later implicated Bullock in the attack. According to a police affidavit, Witherspoon said "his brother Eric told him that Bullock wanted them to do something to Pace that would get rid of the baby."        Beulah said Bullock even invited along two women, one who testified earlier in the trial that she saw the money for the assault passed out to the killers. "Everybody was pretty much in a party mood. Some people were drunk," Beulah said.        Bullock and the three youths were charged with capital murder, in the first test of Arkansas' new Fetal Protection Law. On February 8, 2001, a jury convicted Bullock of capital murder and he received an automatic life sentence since the prosecution did not seek the death penalty. He also was convicted of first-degree battery, which carries a 20-year sentence. Witherspoon's older brother, Erik Beulah, pleaded guilty in April 2001 to first-degree murder and first-degree battery and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. His younger brother, Lonnie Beulah, previously lost an attempt in the state Supreme Court to have his case moved to juvenile court.        On June 13, 2001, an appeals court ruled that Derrick Witherspoon should be tried as an adult even though he was 17 at the time of the attack. The Court of Appeals rejected Witherspoon's claim that the state failed to show that the beating death was a "serious and violent" crime.        The fatal attack was not the first that Bullock had tried to set up. On August 9, he had arranged for two women to attack Pace at her home in Little Rock but had called the plan off when he discovered she was not alone. The next night, he went to her house and the women attacked Pace while he was there, Johnson said. Pace testified she was ordered to lie on her kitchen floor and the women hit her in the face and head. After her assailants left, "I went in the other room and Erik was just sitting on the couch," Pace said. On August 26, Eric Beulah, whom Pace had dated some years earlier, was supposed to attack her in a parking garage as she left work at Regions Bank in downtown Little Rock. But too many people were nearby.        Kristen Everett, The Associated Press. "Murder Charges in Fetus Death: Pregnant Woman Says Boyfriend Hired Three Men to Kick Her." September 2, 1999; and "Life Notes: Unborn Babies Murdered." Life in Oregon [Oregon Right to Life], December 1999-January 2000, page 7; Traci Shurley. "Life Term Sought in Fetus Death." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 6 and 9, 2000; Post-Abortion Review, January-March 2000; "Arkansas Man Prosecuted Under Fetal Protection Law." Arkansas Democrat Gazette, February 8, 2001; Melissa Nelson. "Arkansas Man Convicted in Fetus Death." Associated Press, February 9, 2001; Steven Ertelt's Pro-Life Infonet at http://www.prolifeinfo.org/infonet.html, February 9 and 11, 2001; Traci Shurley. "Pine Bluff Man Pleads Guilty in Death of Fetus." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 3, 2001; "Appeals Court: Try Man Accused of Beating Pregnant Woman, Killing Fetus as Adult." The Topeka Capital-Journal, June 14, 2001; "Arkansas Man Convicted in Unborn Victims of Violence Case." Associated Press, November 5, 2001; Pro-Life Infonet, November 13, 2001. Little Rock -- Conspiracy to Commit Murder, Assault, Malpractice, Impersonating a Doctor, and Income Tax Evasion        Abortionist Curtis Stover admitted to many of the charges laid against him by former employees. These charges included lack of a back-up hospital in violation of state law; operating without a nurse on duty; improperly dispensing drugs and ordering prescription drugs for personal use. Stover was reprimanded by the state medical board for performing abortions without hospital privileges or a backup physician.        Another employee stated that Stover hired a woman to pose as a registered nurse (RN) for an inspection. In this woman's absence, other staff signed charts with her name; another nurse worked one day a week but signed off on charts for abortions on other days; staff were instructed and permitted by Stover to sign his name to prescriptions; and clerical staff were instructed to dispense medications. Another employee told an investigator that Stover designated his wife, an unlicensed person, as his "on call" person while he was out of town. An investigative report found that admitted to many of the allegations.        Stover's wife, Diana, was convicted and incarcerated for conspiring to murder him. Diana evidently contended, unchallenged by her husband, that he "was engaged in income tax evasion and hiding his assets from her and introducing drugs to her which caused her physical injury."        Supreme Court of Arkansas 696 S.W.2d 750 #85-50; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 23 and March 6, 1992; and Perry County Circuit Court Case #CIV 87-105-A. Little Rock -- Assault with a Deadly Weapon (ADW)        With information about the following investigation being withheld from the public, Laura Echevarria of the National Right to Life Committee believes the incident, which received little media coverage, highlights an inherent anti-pro-life bias in the media.        On May 18, 2001, J. Fred Hart, 51, and Jim Dawson, 70, of Vilonia were picketing in front of the Family Health Care Clinic abortion mill in Little Rock when two women pulled up in a black 1994 Chevrolet pickup.        The police report stated that "The passenger [in the truck] started yelling obscene words, then exited and grabbed his sign and took off running when she fell. Hart stated he bent over to pick up the sign when [the woman] stabbed him in his left side with a knife." The woman was identified as Amanda Sue Petzak of Sherwood, Arkansas.        But detectives questioned the woman involved in the disturbance, and her version of events differs from Hart's, a police spokesman said. "She came down on her own and told her version of events," said Lt. Eric Higgins. "She said she pulled over and got into a discussion over abortion and he threw her to the ground." The woman told investigators that Hart was cut during the struggle. Police haven't released the woman's name. "We're investigating the incident, but no warrants have been issued," Higgins said.        Dawson told detectives he recorded most of the attack with a video camera, and police have taken the videotape into evidence. Hart and Dawson gave detectives the license plate number from the pickup, and investigators traced it to a Sherwood, Arkansas man.        Weeks later, despite the videotape showing the assault, the investigation remained open, leading many pro-lifers to believe that the authorities simply don't care if they are assaulted. Of course, if a pro-lifer had stabbed a pro-abort, it would be front-page news all over the world.        Reflecting this indifference, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department said the investigation "is still pending and they're still working on it. I sure don't have any facts about it, and I'm not sure what they're going to release on that, if anything. There may be other investigations involved with it."        "Pro-Life Man Stabbed at Arkansas Abortion Facility." Arkansas Democrat Gazette, May 15, 2001; Steven Ertelt's Pro-Life Infonet at http://www.prolifeinfo.org/infonet.html, May 16, 2001; "Pro-Lifer Stabbed While Protesting Outside Arkansas Abortuary." Catholic World News Briefs at http://www.cwnews.com, May 18, 2001; "Update on Pro-Life Man Stabbed at Arkansas Abortion Facility." Cybercast News Service, May 31, 2001; Pro-Life Infonet, June 1, 2001. Little Rock -- Assault and Destruction of Property        Abortionist Tom Tvedten admitted that he wrested a camera from the hands of a pro-lifer who had photographed him and smashed the camera on the cement and on the man's vehicle with the intent of destroying it. He also admitted in a deposition that he was not board certified or board eligible, that he counseled abortion patients for approximately 30 minutes in groups of twelve, and that in order to receive individual counseling the woman would have to specifically request it. The Arkansas Medical Board agreed to the temporary closing of his office after allegations of excessively prescribing controlled substances. Medical Board minutes state that his medical license had been suspended for three months, and his motion to reapply for DEA certification was denied. Also, a lien showed unpaid federal taxes of $20,963.        Arkansas State Medical Board Minutes of April 8 and September 16, 1983; Notice of Federal Tax Lien dated April 29, 1987; and deposition in Perry County Circuit Court Case #CIV 87-105-A. back to top Magnolia -- Capital Murder        Two teenaged boys, Matthew Ryan Elliott, 16, and William Davis, 17, plotted for at least three weeks to kill 15-year old Brittni Pater, who was 12 weeks pregnant. They dug a grave for her on February 4, 2000 and picked up some large sheets of plastic from the Kroger grocery store where Davis worked.        They bludgeoned her repeatedly with a long, heavy metal bar wrapped with heavy tape around one end, as though the person who wielded it wanted to make sure he was able to get a good grip, investigators said. Then they ran her down with their car and dumped her battered body in an old gravel pit.        Elliott immediately bragged to his friends about how he had killed Brittni.        Several students have told investigators that they heard Matthew discussing plans to kill Brittni, the sheriff said. And authorities believe that Brittni knew she was going to die. At some point before her death, Matthew told Brittni they weren't headed to an abortion clinic, the county sheriff said. "We think he told her he was going to kill her."        Elliott and Davis were both charged with capital murder after giving statements in which Brittni's pregnancy was cited as the reason she was killed. On November 2, 2000, a Columbia County jury found Davis guilty of capital murder for his part in the fatal beating.        Cathy Frye. "Girl, 15, Left Note Before Death." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 9, 2000; "Arkansas Teen Killed Because She Was Pregnant." Steven Ertelt's Pro-Life Infonet at http://www.prolifeinfo.org/infonet.html, February 10, 2000; Chuck Plunkett. "Jury Decides Help Given to Kill Girl Was Murder." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 4, 2000. back to top Marshall -- Murder        47-year-old Julie Smith of Marshall, Arkansas was a nurse whose 13-year-old daughter was pregnant, and she did not like the situation one bit. So she used her nursing skills to induce premature labor in the little girl, and, when her infant grandchild was born, she refused to use those same nursing skills, and just watched her struggle to live for half an hour. Then the baby died, and Smith buried the baby in a shallow grave.        She was charged with murder in March 2003 and was suspended from her job by the Searcy County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.        David Hammer, Associated Press. "Accused Grandmother Wants Day in Court." FindLaw, October 21, 2003. Downloaded from the FindLaw Web site at http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/other/1110/10-21-2003/20031021051504_02.html on October 27, 2003; "Grandmother Eager to Face Murder Charges, Lawyer Says." KPOM Television 24 [Fayetteville, Arkansas]/KFAA Television 51 [Rogers, Arkansas], October 20, 2003. back to top Return To State By State Documentation © 2003 Abortion Violence