Photo: Scene of Dec. 5, 2017 murder at 5097 Old Military Road. Photo: Courtesy Baxter County Sheriff’s Office.
The murder trial of a rural Mountain Home man charged with shooting and killing his landlord in late 2017 will go to a Baxter County Circuit Court Jury Wednesday.
Sixty-one-year-old Robert Dean Penny is charged with first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and one count of criminal mischief in the death of 71-year-old Chester Raymond Hornowski. Penny is accused of initially shooting Hornowski 18 times. He then reloaded his 9mm handgun and fired four more bullets into the landlord’s body lying on the floor near a couch.
Penny and several others rented rooms in homes Hornowski owned along Old Military Road in what was described as a boarding house type arrangement. Friends say Hornowski, a 34-year-veteran of the Chicago Police Department, had run a similar multi-resident operation in the Illinois city prior to retiring to the Twin Lakes Area.
Penny’s attorney, Sam Pasthing, said on the trial’s opening day his client was likely to take the stand and give his side of the story, but he opted not to testify. He made the declaration under oath Tuesday afternoon and testified he would not have said any more than he had in earlier interviews with investigators.
After the state rested its case, Pasthing moved for a directed verdict, alleging the state had not presented sufficient evidence to sustain the charges against his client. Circuit Judge Gordon Webb denied the motion.
When court resumes Wednesday morning, both sides will present closing arguments, Judge Webb will instruct the jury and the case will be turned over to the panel to decide Penny’s fate.
The shooting was reported to have been sparked by an alleged eviction threat apparently based on Penny’s refusal to make good on a promise he had made to join a work detail with other tenants.
According to testimony Monday, it was not unusual for the tenants to “pay down” their rent by working around the property. A former tenant told the jury the work consisted of mowing, cutting wood, small construction projects and raking leaves.
The tenants would generally meet in the morning and discuss the jobs they would be doing that day.
The rent gave tenants a bedroom and access to a central kitchen.
Hornowski was reported to have gone to meet with Penny to discuss the refusal to work and the possibility he might be asked to move. At one point, the landlord was said to have called the other residents to the area where he and Penny were located.
Before they could all gather, gunshots rang out.
A former resident at the Old Military Road property was on the stand during the trial’s opening day Monday. He said Penny had allegedly told Hornowski he was retired and did not need to work. That, the former tenant said, led the landlord to decide he was going to ask Penny to move.
The eviction threat was the reason Penny gave for firing the last four shots. He said if he was asked to leave the property it would “ruin my life.”
Penny was said to have confronted some of the other tenants after the gunfire ended. He told them Hornowski was dead and was reported to have taunted, “you want some of this, too?” referring to the 9-millimeter pistol he was carrying.
The accused murderer has his own story of what happened and why. He said Hornowski had come at him “in a rage,” threatening to throw him out of the residence. He alleged the landlord had punched him in the chest, he had become fearful the attack would continue and shot Hornowski. When asked how many times he shot Hornowski initially, Penny was said to have replied “until I emptied it.”
In a video taped interview investigators had with Penny on the day of the murder, he described Hornowski as yelling and screaming, with his face “all bloated and red.” He said Hornowski attacked him, and he warned the landlord not to hurt him again, but, “he came at me with those big, fat fists all balled up.” It was at that point, Penny said he fired the first shots.
Officers at the scene said they found no visible marks on Penny to bolster his allegation of being struck by Hornowski.
Penny called Hornowski “an abuser of senior citizens” who required his tenants to work. Penny said he had numerous health problems and was not able to do the work demanded by Hornowski. He said he had only shortly moved into Hornowski’s property from a trailer park in Midway “to save some money.”
The accused murderer said at one point, Hornowski called him a “sniveler,” because of his inability to work due to his health.
While his taped interview with investigators played, Penny intently watched himself on a monitor positioned on the defense table. He had the same fixed stare when pictures of Hornowski’s face came on the screen during the testimony of Arkansas’ Chief Deputy Medical Examiner, Dr. Stephen Erickson.
Dr. Erickson, who did the autopsy on Hornowski, said the murdered man had been shot a number of times, and entry and exit wounds, bullets or bullet fragments had been found in a number of places on his body, including his nose, right foot, chest, arms and both hands. He said at some point Hornowski was shot in the leg, breaking his femur, which would have caused him to “go down.” Dr. Erickson said the bullets had hit a number of Hornowski’s internal organs, including his heart, lungs and intestines.
Following Hornowski’s murder, Penny is reported to have bolted from the building, gotten into his pickup truck and made a wild dash to get away from the scene. Penny was said to have accelerated rapidly, almost hitting a Baxter County deputy sheriff. Penny’s vehicle hit a ditch on the northeast corner of the property, becoming airborne twice before smashing into an unoccupied 2017 SUV assigned to Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery. The SUV sustained almost $19,000 in damages.
Penny told investigators his decision to leave the scene and try to go to a friend’s home in Midway “was just stupid.” He denied trying to hit the deputy, but said he did not see him as he was trying to leave.
He said, “I had already screwed up enough.”
Sheriff Montgomery and several of his deputies testified on the trial’s opening day, laying out the events, beginning with the fact they arrived knowing they had an active shooter on the property, but not knowing exactly where he was.
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