Workplace harassment is being blamed for the shooting death of a Pine Bluff woman by another woman Monday morning.
Lillie Mae Foots-Wilson, 49, allegedly shot Latange Long, 34, inside the Central Moloney plant on Jefferson Parkway after she said Long had “harassed her for years,” Foots-Wilson reportedly told police.
Jefferson County Coroner Chad Kelley pronounced Long dead at the scene and listed the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds.
During a court hearing Tuesday, Detective Bill Wiegand said Long was shot in the right buttock and in the head.
Wilson had originally been held on probable cause of first-degree murder but prosecutors upgraded that charge to capital murder during the court hearing, determining that Wilson acted with deliberate purpose, and at the request of Prosecuting Attorney S. Kyle Hunter, Wilson will be held without bond at the adult detention center.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Police initially responded to the plant at 10:30 a.m. and Wiegand said when they arrived, management had detained Wilson in an office and had taken a .357-magnum pistol which they turned over to officers.
There were 75 employees inside the plant when the incident occurred and Wiegand said detectives talked to all of them.
“Some of them heard the shots, some of them saw her with the gun, and some saw her shoot Long,” Wiegand said.
Wilson was taken to the detective office and Wiegand said she waived her right to an attorney and agreed to talk.
She said she and Long had been involved in an on-going dispute for six years, claiming that Long had “bullied her, pushed her into a corner, called her names, sabotaged her machine, and took trash from her (Long’s) work area and put it in Wilson’s work area.”
Wilson said she had also filed complaints with management about the incidents but nothing had been done about them.
Monday morning, Wilson said she received permission to go home to take headache medication, and while there, took her .357-Magnum pistol and put it in her pocket before going back to work.
“She said if the supervisors were not going to handle the problem, she would,” Wiegand said in a probable cause affidavit. “She said if Long continued to harass her, she was going to pop her in the leg to show her she meant business.”
Wiegand said Wilson told him that when she returned to her machine, “Long looked at her and called her a derogatory name,” before Wilson took the gun out of her pocket and started shooting.
After firing at least five shots, Wilson reportedly stopped shooting, opened the cylinder of the weapon and dumped out the shell casings, then reloaded the gun with shells she had in her pocket.
Deputy Prosecutor Maxie Kizer said a printout from the Arkansas Crime Information Center showed that Wilson had no prior arrests but according to several people, Wilson had been involved in a prior shooting incident in 1998 that resulted in the death of her former husband.
Retired Police Lt. Larry Plunkett said Tuesday he worked the case when Jimmy Lee Foots Jr. was shot to death on July 8, 1998, at a residence on the east side of the city.
Plunkett said Wilson had “been the victim of domestic battery” and during one of those incidents, she shot and killed Foots. Prosecutors did not charge her in that incident.
Employees return
Chris Hart, Central Moloney vice president for personnel and community relations, said Tuesday that employees were returning to work.
“We realize it’s gonna take us quite a bit of time, if there is such a thing, to return business to normal,” Hart said. “In order to help in the healing process for our employees, they are returning to work today. We have increased the presence of chaplains and will allow employees to speak with their coworkers about what happened as much as they need to. They will be able to ease back into work.”
Hart said that a few people opted not to come to work Tuesday.
“Those people told us that they just weren’t ready to come back,” Hart said. “The overwhelming majority of our people are back at work today. They are going about their business at their own pace.”
Hart said that a training room has been converted into a place for employees to take some time out from the workday to reflect on the events of Monday morning.
“We’ve opened it up to use as a sanctuary,” Hart said. “They can get away for a minute if they need to. There are a number of folks that chose to seek some refuge and talk to the chaplains that we have available for them.”
“When you look at what happened yesterday if there is any good to this it is that it has forced us to reevaluate what our priorities are,” Hart said. “It draws us closer to the things that matter the most to us.”