A 44-year-old Little Rock man accused of abducting and brutalizing three women, raping two of them, in separate incidents last year has accepted a 35-year prison sentence.
Lawrence Jamison Russell spent 11 months in jail before pleading guilty to three counts of kidnapping, three counts of second-degree battery and two counts of rape after his attorney, Jimmy Morris, negotiated the sentence.
In two cases, which occurred about seven months apart, two women told police that Russell had picked them up while they were walking on downtown streets. He offered to take one home and the other to a hotel, but ended up driving them to the same secluded North Little Rock location.
One woman was able to escape after he hit her in the head and face about 20 times, according to police reports. The other woman was raped after a struggle.
The battery charges stem from Russell's attack on three North Little Rock police officers who took him into custody last Dec. 28. Screaming, "I'm bipolar," he fought Eric Stockman, Phillip Gangluff and detective George Goree until police subdued him with a stun gun.
State doctors later found no mental illness in the twice-divorced father of six, court filings show. Russell's employment history shows that he was working as a behavioral health aide at the Arkansas State Hospital when he was arrested. He was fired while he was in jail for not showing up to work.
Russell entered his guilty plea before Circuit Judge Barry Sims on Nov. 28.
Russell's arrest came five days after a 55-year-old woman told police that she'd been walking along Broadway about 3:40 p.m. on Dec. 23, when a man driving a newer model, black Dodge Charger pulled up and asked her if she needed a ride. The woman said the man seemed respectful, and she was cold, so she got into the car.
She gave the man directions to her home, but he drove past her house, she told police. He told her she should be staying in a motel rather than her house.
She told the man she was not a prostitute, but he kept driving, she said. After reaching a secluded area in the 7400 block of Baucum Pike, he parked next to some old train tracks, according to police reports.
When she asked the man what he was doing, he told her, "I'm about to rape you."
She tried to escape, she said, but in the struggle, he dislocated her shoulder. He warned her he would knock her out if she tried to get away again and told her he had a gun.
She said he used a condom when he raped her. After the attack he took her home, although he hinted that he would be watching her to see if she went to the police, she said.
Seven months earlier, the Baucum Pike location had been the scene of an attack on another woman, and the police investigation had developed Russell as a suspect after he was seen driving in the area in a car that matched the second victim's description of her assailant's car.
In that case, a 40-year-old Mount Ida woman told police that she'd been walking on Izard Street in Little Rock when a man pulled up next to her in what she said looked like an "undercover" police car.
"Hi beautiful," the driver greeted her, asking if she needed a ride. The woman said she told the man someone was already coming to pick her up to take her back to Mount Ida.
But she got in the car with the man when he told her he'd take her to North Little Rock and get her a hotel room, the woman told police. After they'd driven through North Little Rock, she asked where they were going, and the man said he was going to the bank to withdraw some money.
When the man told her he was an undercover police officer who could arrest her, she said she hadn't done anything wrong and demanded that he stop the car and let her out.
He refused, instead driving her to the Baucum Pike area, where, after being hit multiple times, she somehow got the car door open and was able to slide out. The man drove off, and the bloodied and bruised woman made her way to some nearby offices where someone called police.
Russell was arrested after both women were able to identify him from a police photo lineup as their assailant.
In January, Little Rock police charged Russell with his third kidnapping and second rape, an Aug. 28, 2017, late-night attack on a 56-year-old Quitman woman who showed up at the Central Fire Station on West Eighth Street looking for help.
The woman said she was walking in the area of Pine and Cedar streets after leaving the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where she had been visiting a hospitalized relative.
A man in a Mustang drove up and asked if she needed a ride. The woman said she declined. The man drove off, only to return a few minutes later.
He grabbed her by her face, picked her up and threw her into the car, she said. She screamed, but stopped when the man started beating her with a baton, promising to kill her if she didn't shut up.
He took her to an unknown location and raped her in the car, then asked where he could drop her off. She said he turned her loose with a warning, "I've got a family, so I better not have police showing up at my house."
Employment records obtained through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act show that Russell, who has a degree in health science, has also worked as a life skills trainer at the Alexander Human Development Center and at UAMS as a patient-services associate and patient transporter.
Metro on 12/09/2018