True Crime Chronicles: Polk County man convicted of manslaughter in 2018 murder is now eligible for parole

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John L. Mitchell

In rural Polk County, a long-running legal battle over a fatal neighbor dispute reached its conclusion in 2023 when John L. Mitchell received a 25-year prison sentence for manslaughter and related charges.

Mitchell, now 66 years old and housed at the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, was convicted in the death of his 60-year-old neighbor Don Earl Smith. The incident occurred in October 2018 near Hatfield, a small community west of Mena.

Deputies from the Polk County Sheriff's Office responded to reports of a body in the Mountain Fork River close to Polk Road 38. They recovered Smith's body from a rocky area along the waterway.

Authorities arrested Mitchell and initially charged him with first-degree murder. During his 2020 trial, held in an unusual setting inside a local church due to early COVID-19 safety measures, Mitchell did not deny killing Smith. He testified that he acted in self-defense after an altercation. Jurors, wearing masks as they deliberated late into the night, found him not guilty of first-degree murder and not guilty of second-degree murder.

They deadlocked on the lesser charge of manslaughter, with an 8-4 split in favor of conviction, forcing a mistrial on that count.

The state attempted to retry Mitchell on the murder charges, but he successfully argued double jeopardy. In 2023 the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled that the acquittals on first- and second-degree murder stood, though prosecutors could proceed with manslaughter and an additional count of abuse of a corpse. That October, a jury convicted him on both charges.

Circuit Judge Charles A. Yeargan sentenced Mitchell on October 2, 2023. He received 10 years for manslaughter and four years for abuse of a corpse in the 2018 case. Separate 2019 charges from the same county added time for two counts of possession of a firearm by a certain person and one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

All sentences run concurrently for a total of 25 years. His tentative parole eligibility date is listed as April 2, 2026, although he remains in the Tucker Unit as of April 14, 2026.

The case drew local attention not only for the homicide but also for the unconventional trial venue and the legal maneuvering that followed.

In a quiet corner of western Arkansas, where neighbors often know one another well, the fatal encounter between Mitchell and Smith left lasting questions about what exactly sparked the violence that ended one man's life and altered another's forever.

With parole now potentially on the horizon, the story of this rural tragedy may soon enter its next chapter.