Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CIV): Man sentenced to 36 years for murder of intimate

Jackie Len Campbell was sentenced on Monday to 36 years in the Arkansas Dept. of Corrections for the 2010 murder of his intimate partner, Alice Lloyd.  The Newton County Times reported on the story on Tuesday, noting that Campbell pleaded guilty to second degree murder and abuse of a corpse.  Campbell had initially been charged with capital murder and with tampering with physical evidence, but the latter charge was dropped because of lack of evidence, and the capital murder charge was reduced to second degree murder as part of Campbell's plea deal.  

The newspaper story recounts the circumstances of the murder, which I blogged about here and here.   Campbell shot Lloyd with a 20 gauge shotgun inside his home at Vendor, and he then washed the corpse in his bathtub, wrapped it in a blanket, and drove it to the Fort Douglas area of Johnson County, where he dumped the naked body into Piney Creek.  He then returned to Hwy 123 and set Lloyd's car on fire.   A U.S Forest Service Ranger came up on the burning vehicle at about 9:30 am the next day, with Campbell sitting beside it.  Campbell ultimately led the ranger to Lloyd's body.  Campbell was 48 at the time of Lloyd's murder, while she was 40.

I note that Campbell's 36-year sentence is greater the 25-year sentence given to a Newton County woman who shot her husband in 2008.  Read more about that case here.  Charges against another woman who shot and killed her intimate partner in late 2009 are still pending.  That case is discussed here.