Victim was Pea Ridge High School grad

Photograph submitted Bobbie Jo Waterman Wilhite
Photograph submitted Bobbie Jo Waterman Wilhite

Special to The TIMES

A murder-suicide in Fort Smith Sunday involved former Pea Ridge residents.

One of the victims, Bobbie Jo Waterman Wilhite, was a 2008 graduate of Pea Ridge High School. The reported suspect, Bradley White, was a 2008 graduate of Bentonville High School, according to his Facebook page and has family members in Pea Ridge. Efforts to contact his family were unsuccessful.

Fort Smith Police are investigating the fatal stabbings of two people, the city's first slayings of 2015, and the death of suspect early Sunday.

At 3:42 a.m. Sunday, police were dispatched to an apartment complex at the 500 block of North 12th Street, where they found the bodies of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Willhite and 27-year-old Rocky Dee Prater Jr., according to a news release from Sgt. Daniel Grubbs with the Fort Smith Police Department.

Police believe that around 3 a.m., Bradley Joe White Jr., 24, forced entry into the apartment by breaking out a window in the kitchen, and then stabbed Willhite multiple times, killing her.

Prater also was stabbed multiple times as he lay on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom. He was later transported to a Tulsa hospital. He succumbed to his injuries around 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon at the hospital, according to the news release.

Police say the weapon used during the altercation has not been located.

Police learned that White was on parole with Arkansas Probation and Parole and lived at a residence in the 8800 block of Peters Court in Mountainburg, where he had retreated following the incident, according to the release.

Police and a deputy from the Crawford County Sheriff's Office conducted a parole search of the home and found White lying on the floor in his bedroom, breathing, but unresponsive. White appeared to have overdosed on prescription medication. Police called Emergency Medical Services, but they were unsuccessful in reviving him.

According to the release, White and Willhite had dated, but recently broke up, and Willhite had begun dating Prater around the first of the month. Police believe White was depressed over the breakup, based on conversations with White's neighbors and friends.

Files from The TIMES of Northeast Benton County indicate that Travis Drake Wilhite, 19, and Bobbie Jo Waterman, 18, both of Seligman, Mo., got a marriage license from Benton County in February 2010.

White left a handwritten note in his bedroom that read, "I cannot go on living without Bobbie," according to the release.

The three bodies will be sent to the Arkansas State Crime Lab for autopsies.

Editor's notes: Article used by permission; By Justin Bates, Times Record • [email protected]

General News on 01/21/2015