FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A man is being charged with second-degree murder after a woman was killed at the 7Hills Homeless Center on Saturday, Feb. 17, according to a press release from the Fayetteville Police Department (FPD).
According to the release, at around 8:10 p.m., officials responded to a 911 call of a woman "inside the warming tent on the east side of the building" who was unresponsive.
When officials arrived, they found the woman with no pulse, according to FPD. Emergency crews performed CPR on the woman, but she was declared dead moments later. Officials said they immediately began an investigation and called the facilities manager to the scene to look at security camera footage. Police identified the woman as 37-year-old Sonia Corbin.
The security footage showed the woman arguing with a man inside the tent. The manager was able to identify the suspect as 33-year-old Michael Thomas, whom the detective also recognized "from previous police incidents," the release said.
Officials said the footage showed the argument quickly escalating as the woman tried to "push past" Thomas to leave the tent. Officials said the footage showed Thomas grabbing the woman into a chokehold and pulling her to the ground.
Police said the woman tried to escape the chokehold as she "violently kicked her feet and slowly stopped kicking," before becoming "motionless."
Officials said about five minutes later Thomas stood up and "briefly stood over the female's body," and started smoking from a pipe that he pulled from a nearby jacket. Thomas then stood over the woman's body, "put his hands together and bowed," before covering her in a blanket, the release said.
FPD said Thomas stayed at the scene for about three hours with the woman still not moving. Moments after he left, FPD said someone came into the tent and noticed the woman not moving and called 911.
"Michael's actions knowingly caused the death of another person under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life," FPD said in the release.
On Sunday at around 9:14 a.m., officials said they located and arrested Thomas at a campsite just north of Town Branch Trail. Officials said he was wearing the same jacket seen in the security footage and a pipe on him with what later tested positive for meth.
When interviewed, Thomas admitted to police that he placed the woman in a chokehold to "citizen's arrest her" because she was acting erratically. Thomas also said when he noticed she didn't have a pulse, he was unable to call 911 "because he didn't have a phone."
Thomas is being charged with second-degree murder and possession of drug paraphernalia. He is currently being held at the Washington County Detention Center.
7Hills CEO Becci Sission said Corbin and Thomas were not strangers and had been seen hanging out at the day center previously. She said both individuals struggled with addiction.
"75% of the people who are experiencing homelessness are struggling with mental health and/or addiction issues. For people who have been experiencing homelessness for longer periods of time, that's often the two things, the two factors that you're going to find is mental health, and then of course, there's a self-medication, and that self-medication becomes drug addiction," Sission said.
As 7Hills mourns the loss of someone they were serving in their community daily, she wants everyone to remember Sonia Corbin by her resilience.
"When you're outside living on the street, trying to fend for yourself or trying to move yourself forward, you have to have a lot of resilience," Sission said.
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