Authorities believe they have identified the man responsible for Friday's murder of a Van Buren County woman.
At about 10 p.m. Friday, as 33-year-old Orzona Fischer was cutting her husband's hair inside their Biechler Street home in Clinton, she was struck by a bullet fired through the home's window. Fischer was dead when police arrived.
Twentieth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Marcus Vaden announced Tuesday that evidence gathered early in the investigation "threw up red flags" indicating Fisher's ex-husband, 47-year-old Rodney Lee Jones, was the shooter.
Jones and Fisher divorced on April 17 in Van Buren County Court. Before the divorce, Vaden said, Jones had moved to a home in Thornton, Colo.
The Thornton Police Department was contacted and advised of Jones' alleged involvement in the crime. Police there were able to locate and apprehend the man. Investigators from the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office and Arkansas State Police were in Colorado conducting interviews and continuing the investigation Tuesday.
Vaden has filed a capitol murder charge against Jones, who was scheduled for an extradition hearing Tuesday.
"Depending on whether he waives extradition or not, we will bring him back or get a Governor's warrant and bring him back to face these charges here," Vaden said. "To me this is a thought-out, premeditated, cold-blooded act."
Vaden said no evidence had been gathered as of Tuesday afternoon that would definitively place Jones in Van Buren County at the time of the shooting, but was confident that the existing evidence will be augmented by other evidence be collected through the course of the investigation to "show in court that he is the one that did it."
Fisher was the mother of three children, two fathered by Jones and the third adopted by the two over the course of their marriage. The oldest is 9 years old, Vaden said.
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
