Four-person entanglement leads to death

LEWISVILLE — A reported romantic entanglement involving four people has resulted in criminal charges against three and the death for the fourth.

“It’s like two triangles stacked on top of each other. Or maybe a figure eight,” Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Potter Barrett said.

Carlton Ferguson, 36, was arrested in May, accused of kicking in the door of a house in Lewisville, where his estranged wife, Jennifer Ferguson, was living with her girlfriend, 45-year-old Kira Bradley, according to court records.

Carlton Ferguson is accused of shooting both women in the head with a .22-caliber firearm. Both women survived.

Then, this month, Jennifer Ferguson, 35, was arrested on a murder count, accused of fatally shooting Bradley with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun in the same Lewisville house.

Jennifer Ferguson’s boyfriend, Jericho Jones, has been arrested on a charge of hindering apprehension in the case, after authorities said he planned to “take the time” for Jennifer Ferguson and assume responsibility for Bradley’s death.

The tangled situation started on April 30, when Lewisville police were called to 915 W. Third St. shortly before 10:30 p.m., according to an affidavit filed in the case. When officers arrived, Jennifer

Ferguson told them that her estranged husband, Carlton Ferguson, had kicked in the door and shot her and her girlfriend, according to reports.

Officers noted blood on Jennifer Ferguson’s head and a wound on Bradley’s forehead, reports indicate. Both women were treated at a Texarkana hospital.

Ten spent shell casings from a .22-caliber weapon were collected from the house the day after the shooting, according to search warrant documents. The documents show that investigators with the Arkansas State Police documented 15 bullet holes in rooms throughout the house.

Court records show that on April 17, Jennifer Ferguson signed a petition seeking a protective order against Carlton Ferguson in Lafayette County Circuit Court. The petition alleges that Carlton Ferguson was violent and had threatened Jennifer Ferguson previously with a firearm.

According to the protective order petition, Carlton Ferguson and Jennifer Ferguson were married Dec. 26, 2013, and separated Feb. 7 of this year.

Circuit Judge Carlton Jones granted a temporary protective order April 27 — three days before the shooting — which prohibited Carlton Ferguson from contacting Jennifer Ferguson and forbade him from going to her home or place of work.

Carlton Ferguson is charged in Lafayette County with aggravated residential burglary, possession of a firearm involving the commission of another crime and two counts of attempted murder. Carlton Ferguson has pleaded innocent. He is scheduled for trial in January.

On Sept. 11, Jennifer Ferguson filed an in-person report at the Lafayette County sheriff’s office, according to a probable cause affidavit. She reportedly told an officer that she worried that her boyfriend, Jones, had killed her girlfriend, Bradley. She told the officer that she and Jones had been drinking together at a motel in El Dorado, when he told her what he had done, according to reports.

Jennifer Ferguson said she had been texting Bradley all day and received no response, and asked that officers check on her welfare at the house on Third Street, according to reports. Investigators found the front door at the house ajar and went inside. They found Bradley dead, lying facedown in a pool of blood “with massive trauma to the head,” police reported.

Jones told investigators that he told Jennifer Ferguson that he killed Bradley to get “cool points,” but he denied committing the murder, reports say. During a follow-up interview on Sept. 12 with Jennifer Ferguson, she confessed, according to reports.

Jennifer Ferguson said it was Jones’ idea to take credit for the killing after she told him on the night of Sept. 10 that she was going to surrender to authorities, according to the affidavit.

“She stated Jericho [Jones] said he couldn’t let her do that. He stated he was homeless, and his mother didn’t treat him right and he would do better in jail,” the affidavit states.

Jennifer Ferguson told investigators that after shooting Bradley on Sept. 10, she drove to Texarkana where she “got her nails done and went to the hair store,” according to reports. After the hair store, she told officers she went to Citi Trends, a clothing store in Texarkana. While in the store, she said she called Jones and arranged to meet him in El Dorado, reports state.

She reportedly told authorities that she and Bradley got into a fight over Facebook and the argument turned physical. Jennifer Ferguson said Bradley slept with a sawed-off 12-gauge firearm and that the two struggled over the weapon before she pushed Bradley away and pulled the trigger.

She told investigators that she wrapped the gun and Bradley’s cellphone in a shirt and threw them into the water from the Red River bridge on her way to Texarkana, reports say.

Jones is being held in the Lafayette County jail on a charge of felony hindering apprehension.

Jennifer Ferguson is being held on a charge of murder. Her bail is set at $500,000. If found guilty of murder, she faces 10 to 40 years or life in an Arkansas prison.