Judge to open files in death of ex-senator

Jurist gives parties in suit time to flag irrelevant data

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chip Welch said he wants to begin releasing more investigative materials related to the murder of former state Sen. Linda Collins by Dec. 10, 15 months after another judge halted public disclosure of the documents.

News agencies requested the materials the day after Collins’ killer pleaded guilty. Welch said the proceedings to decide what can be made public have taken too long.

“It’s been a long time,” the judge said.

Collins’ two children and ex-husband have sued the Arkansas State Police and the Randolph County sheriff’s office — the investigating authorities — to restrict what the public can see of the murder probe. They want the judge to review investigative files and cull materials irrelevant to the investigation.

The family does not dispute that the investigative files include public records that will be released under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. But they say the murder probe was so broad that police collected their private, personal and business information, which should not be made public.

Collins, 57, was stabbed to death at her Pocahontas home in June of 2019. A friend and campaign worker, Rebecca Lynn O’Donnell of Biggers, was arrested about two weeks later. Collins’ body was found wrapped in sheets in her driveway, and the slaying of the former Republican lawmaker, hotelier and real estate agent captured national attention.

In August 2020, O’Donnell, 51, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, and abuse of a corpse in exchange for a 50-year prison sentence. That includes her no-contest plea to solicitation of capital murder for trying to have Collins’ ex-husband killed and framed for Collins’ murder. The plea agreement spared O’Donnell from facing the death penalty at trial.

O’Donnell never told authorities why she killed Collins, and her only public statement was to admit that she deliberately killed Collins as a condition of her guilty plea. Collins’ son told reporters that his mother had suspected O’Donnell was stealing money from her and Collins had confronted her about it.

At the request of prosecutors, police reports and materials related to the investigation, including court records, were ordered sealed the day after Collins was killed. The arrest affidavit was disclosed two months later at the prosecution’s request in an acknowledgment of the “public’s right to know the fundamental nature and facts of this case.” That court order also allowed public access to the court record and pleadings.

But everything else, like search warrants, remained sealed with authorities further prohibited from talking about the case outside of court.

Five days after O’Donnell’s guilty plea, presiding Judge John Fogleman ordered the investigative materials unsealed, and the process of releasing the materials began the next week.

Just a few days into the process, the Collins family filed their suit in Pulaski County Circuit Court to delay the release of information until materials they deemed irrelevant to the murder investigation could be culled.

Judge Cathi Compton immediately blocked the police agencies from releasing more materials in an order that was intended to be temporary — at most two weeks — until a hearing could be convened. But there were so much material to look through — more than 20,000 pages — that the sides reached an agreement to delay that hearing indefinitely until the materials could be collected and made ready for the judge’s review.

The parties further agreed that the Collins family would be able to make their arguments for what materials should be held under seal.

Court records show that Compton began reviewing the Randolph County sheriff’s materials but that as of December 2020 had not received the state police file. Seven months later, in July, the litigation was transferred to Welch as part of a judicial realignment of duties.

The next action came in October when ABC News moved to join the litigation, stating that news agencies’ interests in the public records might not be protected otherwise. The Arkansas Press Association similarly joined the case at Wednesday’s hearing.

At the proceeding, the judge expressed concern about how long it’s taken so far, noting that the state police had only just provided him with its investigative file Tuesday night.

His message to the Collins family and state lawyers was to get together and work out what they could agree was public record, setting the Dec. 10 deadline to codify their decision in an order for him to sign so material can be released “immediately.” Documents that the sides can’t agree on will be the subject of a later hearing, the judge said.