In the late morning of a summer day in Nashville, Arkansas, the life of 44-year-old Pamela Harris was tragically cut short. On Saturday, June 21, 2014, officers from the Nashville Police Department responded to a shooting incident that had occurred around 11 a.m. in the 1300 block of South Main Street. There they found that Harris had been shot with a small-caliber handgun.
She was rushed to Howard Memorial Hospital, but the efforts to save her were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead.
The investigation into the shooting quickly pointed to a suspect. Gary Dwayne Swift, a 49-year-old man from Ozan, Arkansas, was identified as the suspected gunman. In a swift operation involving the Arkansas State Police, the Howard County Sheriff's Department, the Hempstead County Sheriff's Department, and the Mineral Springs Police Department, Swift was located and arrested without incident at 12:18 p.m. the same day.
Following his arrest, Gary Dwayne Swift faced serious charges for his alleged role in the death of Pamela Harris, a local woman who was a wife and a mother to five children. He was charged with Murder in the First Degree, a Terroristic Act, and Possession of Firearms by Certain Persons. During his first court appearance, a bond was set at $500,000 as he awaited further legal proceedings for the violent act that took a mother from her family.
