Cite as 2026 Ark. 123
SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
No. CR-26-12
Opinion Delivered: October 1, 2026
WILLIE LEON MOTT, JR.
APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
[NO. 60CR-24-1372]
V.
HONORABLE KAREN WHATLEY,
JUDGE
STATE OF ARKANSAS
APPELLEE AFFIRMED.
CODY HILAND, Associate Justice
Willie Leon Mott, Jr., appeals his convictions and life sentences1 for the first-degree
murder of Teangela Tate, the capital murder of her infant son, and the attempted capital
murder of her toddler son. On appeal, he argues that insufficient evidence supported his
convictions and that a portion of Arkansas’s capital-murder statute, specifically Arkansas
Code Annotated § 5-10-101(a)(9)(A) (Repl. 2014), is unconstitutionally vague. His
arguments are unconvincing. Thus, we affirm.
I. Factual Background
In the morning hours of February 13, 2024, a law enforcement officer with the
Arkansas Highway Police discovered Teangela Tate’s body on an embankment next to an
on-ramp for Interstate 440. North Little Rock Police and the Arkansas State Police later
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Mott received a life sentence for the murder of Teangela and a separate life sentence for the attempted capital murder of MV2. The sentence for murdering Teangela runs concurrently with his life sentence without parole for the capital murder of MV1, while the sentence for attempting to murder MV2 runs consecutively to the MV1 sentence. arrived at the scene. Teangela had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and her death was
ruled a homicide. At the bottom of the same embankment, Detectives Michael Gibbons
and Cody Brown with the North Little Rock Police Department found a car seat and two
small children who appeared to be deceased. One child, MV1, was dead upon arrival.
Another child, MV2, however, was still alive. Officer Roderick Quinn with the North
Little Rock Police Department assisted the detectives and administered aid to MV2 until
medical services arrived. Officer Quinn testified that MV2’s clothing was soaking wet, he
was “barely breathing,” had “a very faint pulse,” and was “very cold to the touch.” MV1
succumbed to multiple blunt-force injuries, including scalp bruising, a skull fracture, facial
contusions and abrasions, and a collarbone fracture, as well as complications from the harsh
environmental exposure.
In the course of investigating the crime scene, Detective Brown learned of Teangela’s
identity and her relationship with Mott. Later that day, law enforcement located Mott at
his mother’s house in Jacksonville and placed him into custody. During his arrest, Mott’s
mother expressed a concern about his cell phone, to which Mott responded, “I do not have
a cell phone, and there’s not one in the house.” That evening shortly after midnight,
however, Mott called his mother from jail and instructed her to get his cell phone, “break
the screen,” and “soak it in water” because the police were “trying to trap [him].”
Detective Jeff Coburn with the North Little Rock Police Department, a qualified
expert in cell-phone-record analysis, reviewed the records of Mott’s cell phone from TMobile. He found that at 4:38 on the morning of February 12, 2024, the night of the
murders and attempted murder, Mott’s cell phone traveled from his house in Jacksonville
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to the location where the victims’ bodies were found and back home over a twenty-eightminute period. Terrance Sloan, a friend of Teangela’s, testified that he received a FaceTime
call from her around 1:00 that same morning. She was holding an infant in a kitchen, and
there was a lot of background noise.
A forensic evaluation of Mott’s house revealed a single bullet hole that entered the
living-room wall and exited near the adjacent carport. A bullet fragment was found outside
on the ground near the carport. In the living room, officers found a shell casing and blood
on the arm-rest and at the bottom of a couch as well as on the floor and on a box. Officers
also took swabs from the interior and exterior of the trunk of Mott’s mother’s gray Toyota
Corolla. The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory tested the swabs from the house and the car,
the bullet fragment, and the shell casing. They all tested positive for human blood. An
examiner with the ASCL determined that the caliber of two of the bullets recovered from
Teangela’s body were consistent with the caliber of shell casings found in Mott’s house.
A DNA analyst with the ASCL testified that the blood swabs from the house and the
car were consistent with Teangela’s DNA. Further swabs were taken from a piece of tape
found on Teangela’s feet that showed a mixture of DNA: 83 percent belonging to Teangela
and 17 percent belonging to a male. When asked whether Mott could be excluded as the
contributor for the minor component of the DNA mixture, the analyst stated that it was
against ASCL policy to state such a conclusion when the DNA sample was too limited, as
it was here.
After the prosecution rested at trial, Mott moved for a directed verdict on each of
the four counts. He argued that any conclusion that he killed Teangela would require
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speculation and conjecture as there were no eyewitnesses and the evidence merely
demonstrated that she was “at some point prior to her death . . . in [his] company.” He
further argued that the blood found in the house and the car was attributable to his
relationship with Teangela. He asked that the same arguments apply to the counts for the
capital murder of MV1 and attempted capital murder of MV2. He also moved to reduce
the charges to first- or second-degree murder and first- or second-degree attempted murder,
respectively. As to the tampering charge, he argued that the evidence was insufficient
because he merely “asked [his] mother to do something with the phone, not that anything
had actually been done” to it. The circuit court denied all of his motions. Mott rested
without calling any witnesses and renewed his motions, which the circuit court again
denied.
During an October 2024 hearing, which occurred over a year prior to trial, Mott
claimed that the phrase “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value
of human life” is not defined in Arkansas’s capital-murder statute. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(9)(A). To support this claim, he opined that this court is “all over the map in its
contradictory attempts to define it” and that it is unclear whether the phrase refers to a
culpable mental state or is merely descriptive. The circuit court denied this motion as well
as his twice-renewed motions on this matter. Mott now appeals.
II. Law & Analysis
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence
First, Mott argues that the circuit court erred in denying his motion for directed
verdict. Specifically, he alleges that the jury resorted to speculation and conjecture to
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convict him. Mott believes that the evidence of Teangela’s DNA found in his house and
his mother’s car was not indicative of a crime, but instead was a hallmark of his “longstanding
relationship” with her. Moreover, he believes that he should have been properly excluded
as the minor contributor to the 17 percent of unidentified DNA found on Teangela at the
time of her death and that any connection to that DNA required the jury to speculate. Mott
points out that the only evidence that “would substantially point guilt” in his direction was
that of his cell-phone data, and he contends that this evidence was insufficient to convict
him. We disagree. Substantial evidence supports Mott’s convictions and life sentence.
On appeal, we treat a motion for directed verdict as a challenge to the sufficiency of
the evidence. Clevenger v. State, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6, 719 S.W.3d 453, 459. When
reviewing the appellant’s challenge, we view the evidence in a light most favorable to the
verdict to determine whether there is substantial evidence supporting that verdict. Parris v.
State, 2026 Ark. 57, at 5, 727 S.W.3d 603, 607 (citing Matthews v. State, 2025 Ark. 213, at
4–5, 725 S.W.3d 16, 19). We do not reweigh the evidence or substitute our judgment for
that of the jury. Id., 727 S.W.3d at 607. Substantial evidence is evidence of a sufficient
force and character that it will, with reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion one way or
the other without resorting to speculation or conjecture. Clevenger, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6,
719 S.W.3d at 459. Circumstantial evidence may provide a basis to support a conviction,
but it must be consistent with the defendant’s guilt and inconsistent with any other
reasonable conclusion. Id., 719 S.W.3d at 459.
Furthermore, in resolving conflicting testimony and inconsistent evidence, it is the
jury’s role to assess witness credibility and resolve discrepancies in the evidence. Id., 719
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S.W.3d at 459. The jury is entitled to accept the State’s version of the facts over the
defendant’s, resolve any inconsistent testimony, and accept or reject any alternative theories.
Clevenger, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6–7, 719 S.W.3d at 459–60. Lastly, efforts to conceal a crime
and evade detection, along with false, improbable, or contradictory statements to explain
suspicious circumstances may be considered as evidence of guilt. Howard v. State, 2016 Ark.
434, at 13, 506 S.W.3d 843, 850.
Teangela’s blood was found on a couch and on the floors and walls of the living
room in Mott’s house. Her blood was also found near the carport of Mott’s house and in
the trunk of his mother’s car. A bullet fragment found next to the carport and a spent shell
casing found in the living room matched the caliber of the two bullets recovered from
Teangela’s body. Teangela was on a FaceTime call with a friend around 1:00 on the
morning of her murder who overheard someone in the house with her talking and yelling.
Three hours later, Mott’s phone was seen making a twenty-eight-minute trip from his house
to the exact location where the victims’ bodies were found and then back home. After
Mott was arrested that morning, he initially told his mother that he did not have a cell
phone. Later that evening, he called her from jail and instructed her to destroy it.
This was more than sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude, without resorting
to speculation and conjecture, that Mott committed these heinous crimes. A conviction
does not require a confession, a murder weapon, fingerprints, or DNA evidence directly
linking the accused to the crime scene. In McClendon v. State, we upheld a capital-murder
conviction based on substantial circumstantial evidence that the appellant had been at the
victim’s house, that his vehicle returned there, that spent shell casings and bullets from the
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crime scene matched a weapon found in his house, and that he attempted to conceal his
involvement. 2019 Ark. 88, at 3–5, 570 S.W.3d 450, 453. The circumstances here are
strikingly similar.
The jury was entitled to accept the State’s theory of the case and reject Mott’s
alternative explanations for the evidence. Viewed as a whole, the evidence was sufficient
to support his convictions. Accordingly, the circuit court did not err in denying Mott’s
motions for directed verdict.
B. Constitutionality of Arkansas Code Annotated Section 5-10-101(a)(9)(A)
Next, this case requires us to revisit an argument we recently considered in Torres v.
State, 2026 Ark. 88, 732 S.W.3d 697. As the appellant in Torres, Mott takes issue with the
following statutory language:
[a] person commits capital murder if . . . [u]nder circumstances
manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, the
person knowingly causes the death of a person fourteen (14)
years of age or younger at the time the murder was committed
if the defendant was eighteen (18) years of age or older at the
time the murder was committed.
Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(9)(A); Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 3, 732 S.W.3d at 699. Mott
similarly argues that the phrase “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to
the value of human life” is unconstitutionally vague. Mott acknowledges, as the appellant
did in Torres, that this court has consistently rejected this argument but nevertheless urges
us to revisit those cases, overrule them, and find this statutory language unconstitutional.
We again reject this request.
Statutes are presumed constitutional. Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 3, 732 S.W.3d at 699.
“The void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense
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with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited
and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Id.,
732 S.W.3d at 699 (quoting Anderson v. State, 2017 Ark. 357, at 4, 533 S.W.3d 64, 67).
The language at issue—“under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value
of human life”—provides sufficient notice to both the accused and the jury about the
conduct proscribed. Id., 732 S.W.3d at 699. The language, furthermore, does not require
reasonable minds to speculate as to its common understanding or application. Id. at 4, 732
S.W.3d at 699. This language plainly means “deliberate conduct that culminates in the
death of another person.” Id. at 4, 732 S.W.3d at 699–700 (quoting Price v. State, 373 Ark.
435, 439, 284 S.W.3d 462, 465–66 (2008)). Thus, the State bears the burden of proving
“a mental state on the part of the accused to engage in some life-threatening activity against
the victim.” Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 4, 732 S.W.3d at 700.
Just as we did a few short months ago, we affirm our decision in Martin and the other
cases that have followed. Arkansas’s capital-murder statute is not unconstitutionally vague.
“It is impossible to avoid the use of general language in the definition of certain offenses.”
Id., 732 S.W.3d at 700 (quoting Stacy v. State, 2023 Ark. 176, at 7, 678 S.W.3d 773, 777).
In fact, “[t]he definitions put the accused, the prosecutors, and the jury on notice of the
prohibited conduct.” Id., 732 S.W.3d at 700. Mott’s argument on this point fails.
III. Conclusion
For these reasons, we hold that substantial evidence supported the circuit court’s
denial of Mott’s motion for directed verdict and that Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-10-101(a)(9)(A) is not unconstitutionally vague. Accordingly, we affirm.
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Affirmed.
Special Justices MILTON FINE and CORY COX join.
BAKER, C.J., and WEBB, J., not participating.
Jeff Rosenzweig and George (Birc) Morledge, for appellant.
Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: James Hill, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.
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