Corrected version
Dr. Arnold Smith and Lee Abraham.
You don’t have to say anything more than that to get people in Greenwood talking.
A murder-for-hire plot allegedly masterminded by Smith followed by a shootout between an assassin and attorney general’s agents at Abraham’s law office across from the Leflore County Courthouse is one of the most sensational crime stories in memory.
Facts about what happened before, during and after the April 28 fatal confrontation have come out in small pieces from police, court documents and testimony.
To tie it all together, the Commonwealth compiled this timeline of what’s been alleged. More will surely come out as the defendants have their days in court.
November or December 2011: Cordarious Robinson, a 22-year-old from Greenwood with a felony drug conviction, meets Smith, 70, for the first time. Robinson says Smith tells him to put his ear to the ground to find someone to “take out” Abraham.
Robinson tells police Smith paid him $15,000 in two installments. He buys a Ford Crown Victoria and customizes it with rims and other accessories.
April 3: Burglars steal six televisions and knock out the bottom portions of doors at a mansion on 1201 River Road owned by Smith that he uses to house cancer patients receiving treatments at his nearby clinic, the North Central Mississippi Regional Cancer Center.
April 12: Smith suffers a 3-centimeter-deep stab wound on his stomach and deep bruising on his legs after he reports being robbed while meeting a man on River Road who falsely claimed to have compromising photos of Abraham. Smith doesn’t give a full statement to Greenwood police, with whom he has expressed distrust for years, but talks to the Commonwealth. Smith alleges a butcher knife he says was found nearby is evidence that the real intent was to murder and chop up his body.
Abraham’s response hints at an ongoing but not-yet-publicly-known investigation by the attorney general’s office into a plot by someone to kill Abraham: “Obviously Dr. Smith has an intense personal dislike for me. In my opinion, it may stem from a handling of a divorce against him many years ago. However, in light of this personal, intense hatred, I must weigh my legal options at this time.” Abraham had represented Smith’s former wife, Sara, in a divorce that she filed for in 1996 and which was granted in 1998.
April 18: Smith writes a letter to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant detailing his conspiracy theories about Abraham.
Unknown date: Smith meets in his office with a man identified by police as Keaira Byrd, a 23-year-old felon, and records the conversation on a concealed video camera. Their faces can’t be seen, but the figure wearing a white lab coat clearly belongs to the oncologist. Smith browses through a cellphone that Byrd claims he stole from Abraham’s truck. Smith remarks at one point after seeing a photo, “Looks like a little Muslim kid, doesn’t it?” Smith’s obsession with Abraham includes unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that Abraham, a practicing Catholic of Lebanese descent, is secretly a Muslim. After discussing a $20,000 payment, Smith demands proof, telling Byrd, “Take a (expletive) picture with a hole between his eyes” with his cellphone.
April 25, 5:35 p.m.: Robinson is recorded by surveillance cameras at Greenwood Leflore Hospital entering an employee entrance carrying a bag after being driven there by a man named Mario Winters. Robinson meets with Smith and later tells police that he provided Smith two handguns, a .black 45-caliber and a stainless .357 Magnum, that he bought from Terry McIntosh of Jackson at the Speedway convenience store in Greenwood.
April 27: Byrd contacts Lee Abraham and offers to sell him a gun Byrd claims Smith provided to him to kill Abraham. He says Smith’s fingerprints on the weapon will implicate Smith in a murder-for-hire scheme. Byrd and Abraham talk several times on the phone, eventually agreeing to meet at 8 the following night at Abraham’s Market Street office. It’s also been reported that Byrd offered Abraham a video or a memory card. Abraham calls Attorney General Jim Hood, a longtime political ally, and asks for help.
April 28, noon: Byrd takes pictures on his cellphone of a MAC-11 machine pistol, a ski mask and clip in his bedroom. He had taken a first picture of the clip the day before.
April 28, afternoon: Byrd and Robinson meet at Byrd’s apartment at 612 Henderson St. Robinson says Byrd tells him he needs a pistol by 7 p.m. and says, “I’ve got to hit a lick for $20,000.” Byrd brandishes the MAC-11 and lets Robinson hold it.
April 28, 7 p.m.: Three agents from the state Attorney General’s Office — Larry Ware, Jerry Spell and Tony Green — arrive at Abraham’s office.
April 28, shortly before 8 p.m.: Byrd and Derrick Lacy, a 25-year-old felon who says Byrd forced him to participate, enter Abraham’s law office. Byrd is carrying the MAC-11, wearing the ski mask and a makeshift sling made from a bed sheet; Lacy is unarmed. Two of the attorney general’s agents are waiting inside; another is outside, although police don’t know yet exactly where he was. Abraham guards a back door, armed with a .45-caliber revolver.
Byrd points the assault pistol at one of the agents. Gunshots are fired, both by Byrd and the attorney general’s agents. It’s not yet known who shoots first. Byrd is hit six times, including a fatal shot to the head; Lacy is wounded in the back and leg; one of the agents is grazed by a bullet on his leg. Byrd and Lacy are both handcuffed as they lie just inside law office office.
Leflore County sheriff’s deputy Len Wooden is the first to respond to the shooting, followed by more deputies, Greenwood police officers and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation agents. A large crowd gathers on the street as word spreads about the shooting.
April 28, 8:40 p.m.: Lacy tells Greenwood police detective Lawrence Williams and Leflore County Sheriff’s Department investigator Robert Quinn that he overheard a phone conversation where Smith offered Byrd $20,000 to kill Smith. Lacy is waiting in an ambulance for a helicopter to take him to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson when he talks with investigators.
April 29, before dawn: Smith and Paul Muller, a 54-year-old Morgan City brick mason, are arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Smith is charged later the same day with capital murder in Byrd’s death. Abraham had represented Muller’s ex-wife in a divorce case and was currently representing Muller’s brother in a contested will for their late mother. No information on Muller’s alleged role in the conspiracy has been released.
April 29, afternoon: An army of investigators descends upon Smith’s Grand Boulevard home after Justice Court Judge Jim Campbell signs a search warrant. The search warrant was granted based on a sworn statement signed by Greenwood Police Sgt. Jeff Byars, a detective, that was drafted by the Attorney General’s Office and Leflore County Assistant District Attorney Tim Jones. Later that night, investigators search Smith’s clinic and continue to search it through May 2.
April 30: Construction crews begin renovating Abraham’s law office. A video surveillance system is also installed; one hadn’t been in place at the time of the shooting. Smith’s Cancer Center continues to provide radiation treatments under Dr. Roderick Givens but not chemotherapy. Patients undergoing chemotherapy are referred to other regional cancer clinics.
April 30: Police charge Smith with a second count of conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly plotting with Robinson to search for hit men to kill Abraham.
May 2, 9:15 a.m.: Smith enters Leflore County Justice Court for his initial appearance, where bond is determined. Smith objects to not having his attorney present, saying he wasn’t notified of the hearing. Judge Jim Campbell denies bond. Smith says the court is destroying his medical practice, and he is eventually yanked out of the courtroom. Campbell then sets bond at $250,000 for Muller, after a delay while law enforcement officers search without success for the documents charging Muller.
May 2: Investigators Mickey Boyette and Thomas Washington of the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure get a search warrant from Campbell and seize prescription drugs from Smith’s clinic, mostly cancer medications and vitamins.
May 2: Greenwood police arrest Robinson and charge him with conspiracy to commit murder and possession of a firearm by a felon.
May 2, 5:15 p.m.: About 38 protesters — mostly young women and children — march from Sam Leach Park to the Leflore County Courthouse carrying signs and chanting, “I am Lacy; I am Byrd.” They ask for a full and impartial investigation into the shooting. Duchess Dallas, a Mississippi Valley State University student, leads the rally.
May 2, 7:30 p.m.: Muller, who was released on bond that afternoon, posts on Facebook: “I am sure the Almighty God will protect me against all odds and the preditors that try to prey on me. Contrary to what you may have heard I had no part in no uncertain terms, in saturday nights activities period !”
May 3: Robinson is released on $120,000 bond.
May 6, 6 p.m.: Protesters again march on the courthouse, led by Dallas and asking for a fair investigation.
May 8, 2 p.m.: Prescription drugs taken from Smith’s clinic are turned over from the state Board of Medical Licensure to Lori Janosko, an investigator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
May 8, 5:12 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson issues a press release saying he’s asked the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI to look into the shootout based on numerous complaints his office received.
May 8, 5:45 p.m.: Greenwood Police Sgt. Melvin Cook picks up Lacy from UMMC in Jackson. Lacy is charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the plot to kill Abraham and capital murder in Byrd’s death. He’s then taken to the Leflore County Jail.
May 9, morning: Lacy’s injuries cause him to return to Greenwood Leflore Hospital. He’s treated and released back to the jail.
May 9, 2 p.m.: Lacy is released from the jail on house arrest with an ankle monitoring device. He posts on Facebook, “Shout out too god im triple bless thanks err body who prayed for a n---- im good.”
May 16, 8:15 a.m.: Deputies lead a now-bearded Smith into the Leflore County Courthouse for a preliminary hearing. Members of his family are among the first to enter the courtroom. Smith smiles broadly when he spots his family after entering the courtroom just after 9 a.m.
May 16, 9:13 a.m.: Leflore County Court Judge Kevin Adams begins the hearing in front of a packed courtroom, including media from the Associated Press and Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Byars testifies first, followed by MBI agent Mark Steed.
Smith’s attorneys, William Bell of Ridgeland and Ronald Michael of Booneville, try without success to have the capital murder charge tossed out. They argue no murder was committed because the attorney general’s agents lawfully killed Byrd in self-defense.
May 16, about 1 p.m.: Adams binds Smith over to a grand jury on one count of capital murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder. He denies bond on the capital murder charge and one of the conspiracy charges, finding that Smith is a “special danger” to Abraham and his family.
Wednesday, 9 a.m.: Robinson’s preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place at the Leflore County Courthouse.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
