Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has announced he is commuting the sentences of two convicted murderers, including one from Fulton County. The governor’s announcement Wednesday includes Bryan E. Dickinson who was convicted of first degree murder in Fulton County in 2000. He was sentenced to 480 months in the state prison system and was housed at the Brickeys Unit in eastern Arkansas.
The commutation means Dickinson is immediately eligible for parole. There were no law enforcement objections to Dickinson’s application.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette, Dickinson was one of two people charged with murder in 1999 after the decomposed body of a Mammoth Spring man was found near the Spring River in northern Fulton County.
Law enforcement said a fisherman found the decomposed body of a white man in some woods near the Spring River’s Bayou Access area early in the morning. The state Medical Examiner’s Office used fingerprints to identify the body and determined it was a homicide.
Dickinson and another man were arrested in connection to the homicide, and they were sentenced one year later.
The governor also granted pardons to several people convicted of crimes including a man from Marshall. Donnie E. Smith was granted a pardon for his 1993 conviction out of Washington County for three felonies, two counts of burglary and one count of theft of property.
Smith’s sentence has been completed and there have been no further criminal-law violations. There were no law enforcement objections to the application.
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