Michael Roy Thompson of rural Mountain Home was sentenced to five years in prison with 18 months to serve and 3 1/2 years suspended after pleading guilty to charges stemming from two violent domestic disputes involving a woman with whom he is said to have had a fairly long-standing relationship.
The change of plea and sentence came during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
Charges in one of the cases stemmed from events in early June last year at the 49-year-old Thompson’s address along U.S. Highway 62 East, and involved Thompson allegedly swinging a sword and threatening to burn down his residence and a motor home parked near the residence in which a couple and their young children, reported to be related to the girlfriend, lived.
In another incident that took place at Thompson’s girlfriend’s residence along Buzzard Roost Cutoff in mid-February, investigators reported Thompson and his girlfriend had gone out together when they began to quarrel.
After returning to her home, the girlfriend and her mother told officers they saw Thompson set fire to something near a structure in the backyard of the main house. The woman said the structure served as her living quarters, but she had been in the main house with her mother when they saw Thompson set the fire.
The women called 911 to report the fire.
Investigators found that Thompson had set a fire in a “plastic tote” near the shed where the girlfriend lived, but the building did not sustain damage as a result of the fire.
Thompson was reported to have fled the residence before Baxter County deputies and fire fighters arrived on scene. Thompson was located and stopped by Mountain Home Police officers on the Sheid-Hopper bypass. He was taken to the Baxter County Detention Center, then escorted to the building where the Criminal Investigation Division is located to be questioned. When the interview was completed, a jailer was walking with Thompson for the short distance to the jail when Thompson broke away and fled on foot in the direction of Hickory Street.
He was quickly captured by the jailer and two other deputies. The jailer, Corporal Austin Morrison, sustained minor injuries and was treated at Baxter Regional Medical Center.
Thompson’s charges included aggravated assault, terroristic threatening, domestic battery, three counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and arson. The charge based on the short-lived escape at the law enforcement complex was dismissed by the state.
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