BENTONVILLE : Widow says man slain on 71B random victim
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
BENTONVILLE — The hardest thing to accept about her husband’s murder two years ago at a Lowell intersection is that it could have happened to anybody, Twyla Francis said Tuesday.
“His murder was so random,” said Francis, whose husband, 32-year-old Daniel Ray Francis, was shot May 6, 2006, while riding in a friend’s car.
“A few inches one way or the other, he would still be alive,” she said. “If he would have bent down to scratch his foot, it could have changed everything.” Francis, 32, of Little Flock spoke publicly for the first time about her husband’s murder and how she and their four children are coping. She waited to talk until two defendants were convicted in Benton County Circuit Court, not wanting to risk jeopardizing the case.
Prosecutors said Daniel Francis was shot in the head by a stranger and that the shooting was gang-related. Serafin Sandoval-Vega, 21, the gunman, pleaded guilty July 11 to capital murder, while Manuel Enrique Camacho, 27, the driver, pleaded guilty the same day to being an accomplice to capital murder.
On Tuesday, Twyla Francis shared stories and photos of her husband at the prosecuting attorney’s office. Daniel Francis had a full, dark beard yet underneath a baby face, his wife said. He was a Christian who dreamed of owning a mechanic’s shop, being debt-free and living in the country with lots of land, she said. A mechanic at J. B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., he usually woke by 4 each morning to read his Bible, she said. “He walked with God every day and encouraged others in their times of trouble,” Francis said. He was shot while riding with co-worker Tracy Stith. Stith told police they encountered a Honda Civic that raced behind their vehicle, cut in front of them and braked on U. S. 71 Business at Pleasant Grove Road. Three gunshots came from behind a rolleddown, tinted back-seat window, Stith said. Doctors took Daniel Francis off life support two days after the shooting. Twyla Francis let their four children, now 12, 9, 8 and 4, see him in the hospital. “I told them Daddy was shot, and that they caught the bad men,” she said. “I told them God missed Daddy so much that he took him to heaven.” Francis said she supports plea bargains that Camacho and Sandoval-Vega took, rather than going to trial. The finality is easier on her and the children, she said.
She also supports prosecutors’ decision to give immunity to a third defendant, Roxana Hernandez, the front-seat passenger. Hernandez, 23, faced a charge of being an accomplice to capital murder, but she cooperated against Camacho and Sandoval-Vega. She also identified a fourth suspect involved after the shooting.
Salvador Carillo Gonzalez, 38, was charged last week with hindering apprehension or prosecution. He’s being sought by police and might be in California, prosecutors said.
Immediately after the shooting, Gonzalez was taken by the other three defendants to Wal-Mart in Rogers where he used Camacho’s wife’s debit card to buy bullets for a. 357-caliber handgun used in the shooting, prosecutors said.
Francis said Tuesday that she and her husband shared their feelings about death in 2002 after she had a miscarriage.
“He wasn’t afraid of dying,” she said. “He looked forward to heaven. He said he’d be fishing with Moses at the River of Life.”
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