A North Little Rock man was arrested on multiple felony warrants Tuesday stemming from allegations he held a local man and woman at knife point and attempted to rob them earlier this year.
Wallace Bernard Watkins Jr., 18, was taken into custody by Hot Springs police around 2:30 at the Clark County Sheriff's Department in Arkadelphia where he was being held on unrelated charges and charged with two counts of criminal attempt at aggravated robbery, punishable by up to 30 years in prison, and two counts of false imprisonment, punishable by up to 10 years.
Watkins remained in custody Wednesday in lieu of local bonds totaling $30,000 and has a hold on him out of Clark County. He is set to appear Dec. 30 in Garland County District Court.
According to the affidavit, on April 20, around 3 a.m., a local man, 22, and woman, 19, gave a ride to Watkins' girlfriend, 18, because Watkins had reportedly been sending her texts on her phone threatening to commit suicide.
The three of them arrived at the 18-year-old's apartment at Brookside Apartments, 219 Civic St., where Watkins was reportedly staying and walked her to the apartment so she could check on him.
When they arrived, they were greeted by another male who told them he didn't know Watkins' whereabouts, so they started to leave. At that point, Watkins suddenly walked up behind them and held all three of them at knife point while allegedly threatening to kill them.
He then allegedly ordered them to empty their pockets and told them, "You know what's up." He reportedly then forced them "against there will" to continue to stand there at knife point for about 30 minutes inside the apartment.
Finally, he allowed the man and woman to leave because he reportedly knew the woman was pregnant and "didn't want to hurt her." Both of the victims told police they were in fear for their lives during the incident and the woman feared for her unborn child.
The victims stated they believed it was Watkins' intent to rob them and possibly harm them, but they didn't have anything of value on them worth taking.
Local on 12/18/2014