Free Republic

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — A judge has sealed investigative files in the killing of former Arkansas senator Linda Collins-Smith. The Randolph County prosecuting attorney's office announced Wednesday that Circuit Judge Harold Erwin had sealed documents and statements obtained by police. The Randolph County sheriff's office said it will issue a "brief statement" on the case Wednesday. They did not answer The order comes after Collins-Smith was found dead from a gunshot wound at her home in Pocahontas on Tuesday. Ken Yang, her former press secretary, has said her death is being investigated as a homicide. According to Yang, neighbors heard...

NEA Report says, quoting sources, that former Republican state Sen. Linda Collins-Smith of Pocahontas has been found shot to death in her home. A State Police spokesman will not confirm this report. He says that the State Police is investigating a death at a home near Pocahontas and that identification of the body has not been completed. The body had decomposed, which added to difficulties in identification. NEA Report has posted a photo of a coroner’s vehicle at Collins-Smith’s home. The State Police would not comment on the NEA Report that the death appeared to be not a suicide. Ken...

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LITTLE ROCK — State Rep. Linda Collins-Smith, a Democrat, announced today that she is switching parties and becoming a Republican. Collins-Smith, of Pocahontas, announced the switch during a news conference at the state Capitol. She did not take questions from reporters and did not say whether she would seek re-election next year as a Republican. “I have not changed. I have not left the Democratic party, but the party left me,” she said. Rep. Linda Collins-Smith Collins-Smith called Republicans “hard-working, commonsense people” and said the GOP “most closely holds to the principles that I and most Arkansans believe in.” The...

Police have launched a murder investigation after former Arkansas State Senator Linda Collins-Smith, a Democrat-turned-Republican, has been found shot dead at her home in suspicious circumstances.Collins-Smith's former press secretary, Ken Yang, confirmed her death to local media on Tuesday night and revealed the case is being investigated by police as murder. Collins-Smith was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives as a Democrat but switched to the Republican Party eight months after taking office in 2011.