The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of Jeffery McPherson for first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in the May 25, 2022, death of a two-month-old child, the court wrote in an opinion issued Oct. 31, 2024. The Miller County jury had sentenced McPherson to consecutive terms of life in prison and 12 years, plus a $12,000 fine. Justice Barbara W. Webb authored the court’s opinion affirming the judgment from the Miller County Circuit Court (No. 46CR-22-49).

The court said the record contained substantial evidence supporting the jury’s verdicts and rejected McPherson’s challenge that the State failed to prove he acted knowingly. The opinion noted that a forensic pathologist found multiple healing and fresh fractures and concluded blunt-force trauma to the chest caused the child’s death. “The cause of death for MC was blunt-force trauma to the child’s chest, which interfered with MC’s ability to breathe,” the opinion states.

Why it matters: the decision upholds the state’s determination that injuries to an infant—documented in autopsy findings and supported circumstantially by other evidence—met the mens rea and actus reus required for first-degree murder under Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-102(a)(3), and that deletion of surveillance recordings met the statutory elements of tampering with physical evidence under Ark. Code Ann. § 5-53-111.

At trial the State presented testimony from Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Theodore Brown, who described seven healing and fourteen “acute” fractured ribs and a fresh metaphyseal fracture of the left femur. Brown testified in part that the metaphyseal fracture in infants is correlated in the literature to trauma produced by “a pulling or a twisting or even a shaking” and that the type of injury was the result of “dramatic action that was not accidental.” The opinion states Brown testified the healing rib fractures were sustained days to weeks before the child’s death.

The opinion summarizes other evidence introduced at trial: McPherson acknowledged he performed a ‘‘bicycle’’ motion on the infant’s legs to relieve intestinal distress and said he spent about thirty minutes in the bathroom shortly before discovering the child unresponsive. A roommate, Jason Uncel, corroborated that the infant had intestinal problems and that McPherson was the child’s primary caregiver; Uncel testified that the child’s crying made McPherson “a little sad” and “kind of crazy.” The opinion also recounts a call in which the child’s mother, Britney Hollowell, said she could hear the infant crying and asked McPherson to take the child to a hospital.

Investigators located a ceiling-mounted internal Ring camera at McPherson’s residence and a working recording that showed McPherson taking the infant to a vehicle after finding him unresponsive. When officers later attempted to download earlier footage, they received error messages indicating the recordings had been erased. In a recorded call to Hollowell from detention, McPherson admitted deleting footage because there was “[stuff] on there that [the police] didn’t need to see,” the opinion states. The Arkansas Supreme Court concluded the preservation of the segment McPherson scrolled to—showing his reaction after finding the child—demonstrated the system functioned and that the deleted footage was likely to have captured earlier conduct relevant to the homicide investigation.

McPherson had argued at trial and on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to establish knowing conduct and that another resident, Uncel, was a plausible alternative suspect. The Supreme Court rejected those arguments, applying the standard that a jury may infer intent from circumstantial evidence and consider attempts to conceal or destroy evidence as probative of intent. The court also rejected McPherson’s request to reduce the tampering conviction to a misdemeanor, distinguishing this case from Scott v. State (1981) on the basis that felony charges were filed and pursued to verdict.

The opinion notes preservation and procedural points the defense raised, including directed-verdict motions and appellate sufficiency standards, but concluded there was no reversible error under Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-3(a). The court affirmed the convictions and sentences.

Background details: the infant (referred to in the opinion as “MC”) died May 25, 2022. The first-degree murder charge was under the provision then codified at Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-102(a)(3) (effective until Jan. 1, 2024). Tampering with physical evidence is defined at Ark. Code Ann. § 5-53-111. The trial judge was the Hon. Brent Haltom. Defense counsel was Sharon Kiel; the State was represented by Tim Griffin, Arkansas Attorney General, and Assistant Attorney General Rebecca Kane.

The appellate decision leaves intact the Miller County jury’s findings and the consecutive sentences rendered at trial.