By Van Jensen
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The woman charged by Little Rock police on Monday in a June homicide had been released from jail shortly before that killing occurred, according to court documents.
Kanisha Adrow, 23, is charged with capital murder in the June 9 shooting death of Michael Osborne, 44. Osborne was found in his vehicle with a bullet wound in his stomach and died after being taken to a hospital, police said.
According to an arrest affidavit, several witnesses told detectives that Osborne had been trying to buy drugs when Adrow pointed a revolver at him and demanded his money.
“The witnesses said that the woman then shot Osborne and stole the money out of his hands,” Detective Eric Knowles wrote in the affidavit.
Two weeks earlier, Adrow was being held at the Pulaski County jail after Little Rock police charged her with residential burglary and theft, court records show. Because of a shortage of beds, Adrow was released from the jail on her own recognizance, despite not paying a bond.
A note on Adrow’s more recent arrest affidavit notes her release was “due to jail overcrowding.” Over the past two years, law enforcement agents and city officials in Pulaski County have sought solutions to a lack of beds at the county jail. Because of too little funding, the jail has substantially cut capacity. When the county’s financial crisis became apparent in 2005, the Pulaski County Quorum Court cut more than $6 million out of the 2006 budget, fired employees across the board and cut 250 jail beds.
The jail held about 950 inmates recently, though it has only 880 beds. A recent study by a University of Arkansas at Little Rock public-safety task force said the jail needs to increase to more than 1,400 beds.
Adrow was arrested most recently in Minneapolis and was charged in Osborne’s killing after an extradition, said Lt. Terry Hastings, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department.
After an arraignment in Little Rock District Court on Monday, Adrow was being held at the county jail. Her bail was set at $500,000.
Copyright 2007 The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette