Warrant issued for husband of slain woman

photo David K. Daughtery
Arkansas-Ole Miss Live Blog

A 40-year-old Bradley County woman, missing for the past few days, was found dead in her home Tuesday night.

Authorities have issued a warrant for the woman's husband of less than two months, 41-year-old David Keith Daugherty, charging him with murder.

Elizabeth Carney was reported missing Tuesday, said Bradley County Sheriff's Office spokesman Bob Gault. Before deputies arrived at her trailer at 1235 Sixth St. NE, family members found her body, he said.

Officers are looking for Daugherty, last seen driving a 1995 Mercury Villager van with a Tennessee license plate reading "373-TLP," Gault said.

Daugherty has had several run-ins with the law, including pleading guilty to killing a used-car dealer in 1990, court records show. The length of his sentence was unclear.

By 1999, however, he was out of jail and convicted again, this time for aggravated burglary, theft and aggravated robbery, records show, and he was sentenced to 16 years.

On New Years Day 2011, he was arrested, Gault said, on a drunken-driving charge.

On Wednesday, a neighbor of Carney's said she spoke to her only a couple of times, including on the Fourth of July when Carney was grilling and talked about two pit bulls she raised since they were pups.

"She said they were her best protection," said Misty Keith, 34, who lived next door to Carney, shaking her head over Carney's death.

Keith's trailer sits close to Carney's, but she said she never heard any screams or sounds of a struggle from her neighbor's home.

"That's what surprised us. We didn't hear anything," she said, standing at her doorway near where reserve deputies watched the crime scene, marked off by yellow crime tape.

Daugherty had told neighbors he spent time in prison, saying he stole cars, Keith said. He told them he recently had been released from prison, she said.

"He said, 'I'm not a bad person,'" recalled Keith, who said he carried around a black duffle bag and wore blue nail polish on his toes.

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