Emmet man charged with capital murder, capital rape in 4-year-old girl’s death
HOPE, Ark. — Prosecutors on Monday formally charged an Emmet man with capital murder and capital rape in the death of a 4-year-old girl who was brought to a Hope emergency room in August with severe bruising, cuts and electrical burns.
James Richard Ivey, 33, has been held in the Hempstead County jail since Aug. 27. The criminal information filed Monday in Hempstead County Circuit Court by 8th North Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hale accuses him of causing the death of a child 14 or younger “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life,” and of raping a child 13 or younger and causing serious physical injury, both on or about Aug. 26. Each charge is punishable by death or life in prison without parole, according to the charging document.
Court records also show that about six weeks before the girl was hurt, Ivey had been released on his own recognizance in a Nevada County case in which a deputy said he pointed a gun at a family with three small children.
‘A reported drowning’
The case began around 7:45 p.m. on Aug. 26, when Hempstead County deputies were called to the emergency room in Hope, where medical staff were treating the girl, according to an Arkansas State Police release. An ambulance had brought her from her home in Emmet.
The child was brought in “following a reported drowning,” the Hempstead County Sheriff’s Office said in an Aug. 28 release. “What initially appeared to be a drowning incident quickly became the subject of a much more serious criminal investigation,” the release said. Sheriff’s investigators and state police agents found evidence the girl “had been severely abused,” the sheriff’s office said. State police said her injuries included severe bruising, lacerations and electrical burns.
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She was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where she died on Aug. 30.
Ivey was first charged with capital rape, first-degree domestic battering, unlawful female genital mutilation of a minor and first-degree terroristic threatening, according to the sheriff’s office and his first-appearance paperwork. Circuit Judge Joe Short set his bond at $2 million. After the girl died, a judge issued a warrant on Sept. 1 adding capital murder, kidnapping and first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor. State police said the arrest was a joint effort with the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The information filed Monday lists only the capital murder and capital rape counts.
The court file does not describe what investigators say happened. A judge ordered both probable cause affidavits in the case sealed “to protect the alleged minor victim.”
Mother also charged
The girl’s mother, Tiffany Edwards, 28, was arrested Sept. 1 and charged by the sheriff’s office with capital murder, kidnapping, first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor and first-degree domestic battery. “Our investigators have followed the evidence wherever it has led them, regardless of who may be involved,” Sheriff James Singleton said in a Sept. 1 release.
As of Monday evening, no formal charges against Edwards had been filed in circuit court, according to state court records.
Both remain in the Hempstead County jail. The sheriff’s online roster lists Ivey’s bond at $14 million and Edwards’ at $4 million, with a Nov. 4 court date for each. A public defender was appointed to represent Ivey, according to his first-appearance forms.
Gun pointed at a family in March
Emmet sits on the line between Hempstead and Nevada counties, and Ivey also has a pending case in Nevada County.
On the morning of March 29, a man called the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office to report he had shot a dog that was attacking his goats, according to an affidavit by Deputy Cason Lemons. Hempstead County deputies went to notify the dog’s owner.
About four hours later, the same man called 911 to say that as he, his wife and their three small children were pulling out of their driveway, a man in a small blue car pointed a gun at them, then leaned out through the car’s sunroof and pointed it at the family again, the affidavit said. He said it was his neighbor.
The deputy wrote that he then spoke with Tiffany Edwards, whom he described as the man’s wife. She said they had a blue car with a sunroof and that her husband was not home, according to the affidavit. On the phone, the man gave his name as “James Wayne” with a different birth date and would not come out of the pasture where he said he was working, the deputy wrote. The man’s father later told the deputy his name was James Ivey.
A bench warrant was issued April 17 on a charge of aggravated assault. Ivey was taken into custody on it at the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office on July 15, the warrant return shows. The next day, Circuit Judge Duncan Culpepper released him on his own recognizance and set his next court date for Sept. 11.
Prosecutors filed two counts of aggravated assault against him in Nevada County on Sept. 3. By then he was in the Hempstead County jail, and a judge ordered him brought to Nevada County for the Sept. 11 court date.
Earlier convictions
Ivey has been sentenced to prison before. In June 2019, a Nevada County judge revoked his probation in a 2016 terroristic threatening case and sentenced him to six years in prison, court records show. That September, he pleaded guilty in Hempstead County to illegally possessing a firearm and was sentenced to five years, to run at the same time. Prosecutors dropped domestic battery and aggravated assault charges against him in that case, which involved a 22-year-old woman, according to the sentencing order.