A man who has been previously charged with burning his mother’s residence because he said God told him to do it appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Thirty-one-year-old Scott Glenn Willett, who formerly lived in Gassville but is now a prisoner in the Grimes Unit of the state prison system at Newport, was in court facing charges in two cases opened in 2021.
He pled guilty to some charges against him and was sentenced to four years in prison to be served with his current sentence.
In the two active cases, Willett was initially charged with theft of property, aggravated assault, terroristic threatening, resisting arrest and possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.
NEWEST CASE
According to the probable cause affidavit, the newest case was opened based on alleged events that took place November 11, 2021.
As in the past, the new case were reported to involve threats by Willett to burn down houses and to kill or cut people into tiny pieces with machetes.
His mother has filed several affidavits to obtain orders of protection to keep her son away from her. The mother and other relatives were in the courtroom during Willett’s plea and sentencing.
The mother told investigators that she was playing a board game with her son, her mother and a friend at her mother’s home along County Road 913.
During the evening, she said, Willett was acting “weird.” She said he began talking about burning down his grandmother’s house as he had done to his mother’s residence in early August 2016.
His mother said Willett made strange statements, including that the Bible “had been written all backward.”
The mother says around 9 p.m., she asked Willett to take her home. She said instead of following her wishes, he drove over back roads in the rural part of the county.
During the prolonged trip, the mother reported Willett talked about having people kidnapped. He is alleged to have told his mother he wanted to torture her and, most of all, wanted to “skin me alive and watch me slowly be tortured and to die.”
At one point, Willett’s mother asked her son to drop her off at a gas station in Midway, where she intended to call her mother and a friend to pick her up.
She said when they got to the drop off location, she asked Willett to give back the keys to her apartment.
At that point, she said, “something inside of him snapped and his voice became very demonic and evil.”
Willett was said to have threatened to cut his mother’s head off with his machete and “to cut her into little pieces.”
He was alleged to have proclaimed that she was no longer his mother and he wanted no further contact with her.
When Willett’s mother was able to get into her mother’s car, they drove back to the older woman’s residence along County Road 913.
Willett’s mother reported that her son also resurfaced at her mother’s house and was standing at the kitchen window looking inside.
He demanded to be let in and said if his request was not met, he would use his machete to break the window.
Willett’s mother said sheriff’s deputies arrived and arrested her son. She said everyone had been in fear that he would make good on his threats by “burning down my mother’s house and killing us all.”
Sheriff’s deputies reported finding Willett in the yard of the residence. He was standing next to a vehicle he had reportedly stolen from his mother.
Willett resisted arrest, but two deputies were able to subdue the six-two, 220-pound Willett and get him into a patrol car.
JUNE ARREST
Another of Willett’s recent arrests came on June 8, 2021 when a trooper with the Arkansas State Police took him into custody.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the state trooper had a vehicle pulled over on Baxter County Road 913 when a Chevrolet sedan passed his patrol unit.
A few minutes later, the trooper said the same vehicle backed down the road around a curve to where he was conducting the traffic stop.
The trooper reported the driver, later identified as Willett, said he was “checking” to see if the officer was okay.
When the trooper questioned Willett as to what he was really up to, Willett was reported to have attempted to drive away.
He was ordered to stop and complied. The trooper asked for Willett’s driver’s license but Willett indicated he had done nothing wrong and did not have to provide it.
The trooper explained that backing down a road in a curve without knowing if other traffic was present was a definite traffic violation.
Willett, who was reported to have become nervous and agitated during the encounter, did provide the trooper with an Arkansas driver’s license and asked the trooper if he was “going go run it.”
The trooper did check the license and found that Willett was on parole with a waiver on file permitting warrantless searches of his person and property.
He was on parole after serving prison time for burning down his mother’s residence.
A search of Willett’s vehicle turned up a small plastic bag containing a while crystalline substance, syringes and a glass smoking device.
At that point, Willett was placed in handcuffs. According to the probable cause affidavit, Willett became non-cooperative when an attempt was made to put him in the trooper’s patrol car.
Another trooper had arrived on the scene and both law officers were able to get Willett into the car. He was reported to have begun “screaming and acting irate but quickly calmed down.”
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