A mishap with a car door last month allegedly led to an assault on a woman who suffered a serious eye injury, resulting in the arrest Monday of a local parolee on a felony battery charge.
Jamar Rayvon Murphy, 26, who lists a Washington Street address, was taken into custody shortly before 9:30 a.m. and charged with first-degree battery, punishable by up to life in prison, and also had a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear. He remained in custody Tuesday on zero bond and is set to appear today in Garland County District Court.
According to court records, Murphy was convicted of robbery and first-degree battery on Sept. 20, 2018, stemming from an incident in 2017 where he robbed and shot a 16-year-old male, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but later paroled. He pleaded guilty on June 13, 2023, to a misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance, marijuana, and was sentenced to one year in jail, all suspended.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on March 22, shortly before 12:30 p.m., Hot Springs police responded to CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs regarding a battery and spoke to a woman who had two lacerations on her left eyelid and a laceration above her left eyebrow. Her left eye was reportedly swollen and starting to bruise.
The woman also complained of pain to the back of her head and noted there was a small knot there.
The woman told police she was leaving her residence on Spring Street earlier to take her son to the doctor when her car door hit another vehicle. A woman got out of the second vehicle and began arguing with her about it.
During the altercation, the second woman reportedly called her boyfriend who was inside her apartment. The boyfriend then got into an altercation with the first woman and at one point allegedly punched her on the left side of her face, causing her to fall down.
The victim stated her head was "really hurting and throbbing" and she realized she was bleeding from her eye. Moments later, the woman and her boyfriend both left and the victim went to the hospital.
The victim noted she knew the woman she encountered "from past experiences," but had never met her boyfriend, whom she reportedly identified as Jamar Harris. She showed officers a Facebook page belonging to Harris and identified him as the one who attacked her.
A computer check showed Jamar Harris was "a moniker" used by Jamar Rayvon Murphy. A check of Murphy's driver's license photo reportedly confirmed he was the same person in the Facebook account for Harris.
Detective Shawn Woodall received medical documents showing the victim had "significant injury to her left eye." The documents noted she had "acute, comminuted fractures of the inferior wall of the left orbit," meaning bones broken in more than two pieces, causing displacement of the eye.
Woodall noted the woman's eye was still swollen and she could not open it at the time he spoke to her. She was also going to need more medical treatment in the future for the injury.
Based on the findings and his investigation, a warrant for the first-degree battery charge was issued on April 3.
Under one statute of the law, a person commits first-degree battery if "with the purpose of seriously and permanently disfiguring another person or destroying, amputating, or permanently disabling a member or organ of that other person's body, the person causes such an injury to any person."