Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe on Thursday denied an executive clemency request from a state prison inmate serving life without parole in the 1990 beating death of a Piggott man.

It was the second time Beebe has denied Denver Mitchell Jr.’s request for executive clemency.

Mitchell was 39 when he was convicted of first-degree murder by a Greene County jury and sentenced in the slaying of 74-year-old Willard Williamson, who had recently moved to Piggott from California.

Since his conviction in 1992, Mitchell has maintained his innocence, saying he and Williamson had been drinking at two Paragould bars and later fought in a field outside town before Mitchell took Williamson’s truck.

Williamson was found unconscious on Aug. 19, 1990, near a railroad trestle. He had been beaten on the head with a blunt object and died 10 days later at a Jonesboro hospital.

Last year, former state Sen. Jim Argue of Little Rock, said he supported clemency for Mitchell and that he met with Beebe and urged the governor to grant the request.

Argue said the “merits of this application are overwhelming; even the daughter of the victim supports the application for clemency.”