True Crime Chronicles: The scourge of meth led to the death of a Fayetteville woman and a life served in prison

 Mark Edward Chumley

In the sweltering heat of an August night in 2015, a rundown rental on South Hill Avenue in Fayetteville became a chamber of unspeakable brutality.

What started as a gathering of meth-fueled acquaintances spiraled into a hours-long ordeal of beatings, sexual assault, and electrocution attempts that left 24-year-old Victoria Annabeth "Tori" Davis dead in a locked shed behind her own home.

The mastermind? A 49-year-old drifter named Mark Edward Chumley, whose paranoia ignited a frenzy of violence aimed at silencing a perceived snitch.

Tori Davis, a young Fayetteville woman with a troubled marriage and a circle of hard-living friends, had no idea her life would end on August 19, 2015. Living at 433 S. Hill Ave. with her husband, John Christopher Davis, 27, and roommate Mark Chumley, 45, Tori was entangled in a chaotic world of drugs and petty crime.

Chumley, a convicted felon who had fled Alabama years earlier to escape his meth addiction, was crashing at the house. He shared a girlfriend, Rebecca Lee Lloyd, 36, who lived there with her three young daughters.

That evening, around 10 p.m., the group – including the Treats, married couple Christopher Lee Treat, 29, and Desire Amber Treat, 29, friends of John Davis – gathered on the front porch. The air was thick with methamphetamine smoke and simmering grudges.

Chumley, high and unraveling, fixated on rumors that Tori was trying to frame him for child sexual abuse and drug charges – whispers that could send him back to prison.

"He's being set up and the person behind it, in his mind, is Victoria Davis," prosecutor Matt Durrett would later tell jurors.

The children were ushered inside, and the mood turned deadly. Chumley grabbed a baseball bat and struck Tori when she dropped her blanket, demanding she cover up.

What followed was a nightmare of group violence: Tori was held captive for hours, beaten with bats and fists – over 20 strikes to her back, knees, sides, and body, sparing only her face on Chumley's orders.

Witnesses later testified that Chumley orchestrated it all, barking commands like, "Somebody else hit her," as the group took turns. He ordered Christopher Treat to rape her with the bat, hooked battery charger clamps to her nipples in a failed electrocution attempt, and even injected her with drugs.

"We were taking turns," Desire Treat recounted in court, her voice steady but eyes haunted.

John Davis, Tori's husband, struck first after Chumley, but the beatings continued until Tori lay motionless. They dragged her to a small shed on the property, locked her inside, and left her to die from blunt force trauma.

Chumley then turned on the others, beating John Davis and threatening the Treats:

"I was afraid to call the police because somebody who'd just killed someone knew where I lived," Christopher Treat later said.

He ordered them to burn evidence and dispose of the bats.

By noon the next day, Chumley called 911 himself, handing the phone to John Davis, who confessed: "I murdered my wife." Fayetteville police arrived to find Tori's body in the shed, the house reeking of violence and fear.

Five arrests followed swiftly: Chumley, John Davis, Lloyd, and the Treats, all charged with accomplice to capital murder, tampering with evidence, and engaging in violent criminal group activity.

"This was nothing short of horrific," Durrett said.

The investigation revealed a tangled mess of codependency and coercion. Chumley, portrayed as the ringleader, had a history of meth abuse dating back to his Alabama days, where a friend once bought him a bus ticket to Arkansas in 2008 for a fresh start.

But addiction pulled him back in. Lloyd, his girlfriend and mother of three, knew of the plan beforehand and joined the beating, later admitting she helped dispose of evidence.

The Treats, drawn in as "friends," claimed they participated out of terror. John Davis, married to Tori since at least 2012, turned on her too, driven by the group's frenzy.

As trials loomed, the case cracked open. In December 2017, John Davis pleaded guilty to accomplice to first-degree murder, drawing 37 years in exchange for testifying against Chumley.

Chumley's first trial in May 2018 ended in mistrial when a witness blurted his felon status.

Retrial in October brought damning testimony: Co-defendants painted Chumley as the puppet master, with Christopher Treat snarling, "I hope you rot in hell," as he left the stand.

On October 19, 2018, after just 90 minutes, the jury convicted Chumley of accomplice to capital murder. Prosecutors sought death, citing the cruelty and intent to avoid arrest – Tori was killed to silence her as a witness.

But on October 22, jurors opted for life without parole, swayed perhaps by defense pleas of Chumley's meth-ravaged brain. As the verdict echoed, Chumley stood: "God bless everyone in this courtroom."

The others followed suit in plea deals. The Treats each got 33 years for accomplice to first-degree murder in December 2018. Lloyd, the last holdout, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in December 2018, earning five years' probation – a controversial light sentence that closed the case after three grueling years.

Today, the Hill Avenue house stands quiet, a ghost of that fateful night. Chumley, now 69, rots in an Arkansas prison cell, his appeal denied by the state Supreme Court in 2019. The others serve their time, families shattered.

Tori's death – ruled a homicide by extreme violence – left her loved ones grappling with questions of how a group of neighbors became killers.In Washington County, where capital cases strain resources, this saga underscored the toxic grip of meth on rural America.

"What happened to Tori Davis was to make her feel what Chumley felt," Durrett said in closing.

A decade later, her story warns of the shadows lurking in plain sight – and the fragile line between survival and savagery.