Photo: Rebecca O’Donnell. Photo: Courtesy abcnews.go.com
POCAHONTAS, Ark. (AP) – An Arkansas woman who was recently convicted of killing a former state senator had been investigated by police in 2007 on allegations that she wanted to have her then-husband killed, according to police files released Thursday.
Police investigation records show that the Arkansas State Police began investigating Rebecca O’Donnell March 2007 after Jeffrey O’Donnell informed them that he knew his wife was trying to have him killed, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Friday.
Police also spoke to a friend of Rebecca O’Donnell, who said she called her “wasted one night” and spoke about finding someone to kill Jeffrey O’Donnell after he found out about her three affairs. Rebecca O’Donnell confirmed to police that she talked to friends “about some figures, but we were joking,” according to statement in the police file. She told police the figures included her husband’s $50,000 life insurance policy and that she didn’t want him to die.
The 2007 investigation ended after the couple divorced, and no charges were filed.
“I don’t think anyone seriously thought that she was actually soliciting to have someone killed,” Lee Short, Rebecca’s attorney, said Thursday.
The information was disclosed as part of the newspaper’s records request filed with the police this week as the investigation into former state Sen. Linda Collins’ murder ended.
Last week, Rebecca O’Donnell pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse as part of a plea deal. O’Donnell, who was a friend and former campaign aide to the senator, was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Collins was found dead from multiple stab wounds outside her home in Pocahontas, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.
Jeffrey O’Donnell declined to comment Thursday but asked for privacy for his and Collins’ family.
Prosecutors who charged Rebecca O’Donnell for Collins’ death did not bring up the 2007 investigation in available court filings. But Prosecutor Robert Dittrich said Thursday that he would have mentioned it in another case against Rebecca O’Donnell in which she was accused of seeking to recruit women at the Jackson County jail for a plot to kill Collins’ ex-husband, Phil Smith and frame him for Collin’s murder.
As part of the plea agreement, Rebecca O’Donnell also pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to solicit capital murder.
Collins was elected to the Arkansas State Senate for District 19 in 2014. The district includes eastern Fulton County and all of Izard, Sharp, Independence and Randolph counties. She lost her re-election bid in 2018.
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