A local man convicted last week of second-degree murder and other charges in connection with a 2014 shooting that left a local woman dead was sentenced to a total of 80 years in prison Tuesday in Garland County Circuit Court.
After a four-day trial, Benjamin Mickey Pitts, 28, was found guilty Thursday of the murder charge with a firearm enhancement for the April 30, 2014, shooting death of Mayela Mata, 26, inside her apartment at 200 Springwood Road.
Pitts, who had only been paroled about a week before the shooting, was also convicted of one count of aggravated residential burglary, being a felon in possession of a firearm and two counts of second-degree battery for injuries sustained by Mata's 20-month-old daughter and a visitor, Antouin Bond, who were also shot during the incident.
The seven-man, five-woman jury recommended a sentence of 20 years in prison on the murder charge and 10 years for the firearm enhancement, which automatically runs consecutively; 20 years for the aggravated residential burglary; and 10 years each for the firearm possession charge and the two battery counts.
Judge Marcia Hearnsberger ruled Tuesday to run all the sentences consecutively for a total of 80 years after a brief hearing held in the courtroom of the Garland County Detention Center.
Pitts' accomplice, Steven Swanigan, 33, was convicted Oct. 13 of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree battery after a four-day trial and was sentenced to 60 years in prison, 40 of which he will have to serve day for day with no possibility of parole because of his status as a habitual offender with a prior conviction for a serious felony.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Joe Graham said Tuesday Pitts' attorney, William Luppen, had argued prosecutors had not sought the firearm enhancement on Swanigan and that it shouldn't be applied to Pitts. Graham said he countered that Swanigan was sentenced as a habitual offender and the law prohibits seeking two enhancements on the same sentence.
Graham noted that under sentencing guidelines, Pitts could be eligible for parole in about 20 years and will be given credit for time served, a little more than three years, since his arrest. He said Luppen had argued for a sentence that would have made Pitts eligible for parole in about 10 years and noted he was happy Pitts was given the maximum.
Deputy Prosecutor Kara Petro, in describing the shooting, had said that around 5 p.m. Mata was inside her apartment with her daughter, her boyfriend, Terrance Scott, his brother, Joseph Scott, their friend, Bond, and a 15-year-old who was upstairs when "the front door burst open" and Swanigan entered armed with two handguns and opened fire. Pitts came up behind him also armed with a gun although he didn't apparently fire his weapon.
Mata received a fatal shot to the head, her daughter was hit on her left side and right arm and Bond was hit in the back. The daughter was airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital where she was treated and eventually released and Bond was treated and released that same day at a local hospital.
Swanigan was arrested May 7, 2014, after he surrendered to authorities who had surrounded an apartment he was hiding in at Park Place Apartments, 108 Bailey Place, and Pitts was arrested later that same day after being called in to his parole officer's office regarding a possible parole violation.
Local on 11/01/2017