COLD HEARTED KILLER-DON DAVIS

DON DAVIS Condemned in the killing of Rogers resident Jane Daniel, who was found shot to death in October 1990 Scheduled for execution on April 17, 2017 Date of original condemnation: March 6, 1992 County in which crime occurred: Benton

At Don Davis' trial for the execution-style killing of Jane Daniel, defense attorneys painted him as someone who “did not have the chances most of us have in life.”

On March 6, 1992, a Benton County jury found Davis guilty of capital murder in the Oct. 12, 1990, shooting death of Daniel during a robbery at her home in Rogers.

Daniel’s husband, Richard Daniel, found his 62-year-old wife fatally shot in the couple’s basement after he returned home from a two-day business trip.

The state told the court during trial that Davis fatally shot Daniel with a .44-caliber Magnum Ruger Redhawk revolver that he had stolen from the Daniels' next-door neighbor earlier that day.

Davis had gone over to the Daniels' home to steal items such as jewelry to make “mad money,” the prosecuting attorney said in his closing arguments.

Once inside, Davis forced Daniel through the home and into the basement, where he had her kneel down and shot her in the back of the head. “He got her valuables at the point of a gun,” then-Prosecuting Attorney David Clinger of Bentonville said. “He walked her right past the costume jewelry. He was after the gold.”

Testimony during trial showed that Davis had pawned off property in Las Vegas that was believed to have been stolen from Daniel. The stolen property matched items missing from the scene –– a Lucien Piccard watch, an 18-inch strand of cultured pearls and a 35mm Nikon camera.

The FBI caught Davis in Albuquerque, N.M., after using pawn shop records to trace his path, said Mike Jones, the head of the Rogers Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division at the time of the killing.

During sentencing, Davis’ attorneys pleaded with jurors to give him life in prison without parole, arguing that he was due leniency based on his upbringing.

The convicted killer’s father, Harry Davis of Houston, testified during the murder trial that his son’s mother gained custody after the couple separated. Don Davis’ mother then abandoned her son when he was younger than 1 year old, Harry Davis said.

“His mother room-and-boarded him out,” Davis’ father told jurors. 

In 1994, Davis appealed the ruling, claiming ineffective counsel in his 1992 trial. That appeal was denied in 1999 in Benton County Circuit Court and upheld by the Arkansas Supreme Court. 

_______

JANE
DANIEL

An Arkansas Gazette obituary described Daniel, 62, as an avid photographer and artist.

Daniel was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Rogers, where she served as an elder and member of the choir.

“Usually, in an investigation, you'll find at least someone with something bad to say, but we never found one person that had a bad word to say about her.”

— Mike Jones, head of the Rogers Police Department Criminal Investigation Division in 1990