Background: News footage of the scene where Michael James O’Malley was found dead in Van Buren, Ark. in April (KFSM). Inset (left): Michael James O’Malley (Ocker-Putman Funeral Home). Inset (right): Anthony Lee Tabor (Crawford County Sheriff’s Office).
An Arkansas teenager is set to appear in court after he allegedly stabbed a man to death after a fight then fled the scene in a stolen car.
Anthony Lee Tabor, 19, is charged with second-degree murder and theft after an incident in April that left 34-year-old Michael James O’Malley dead. According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, police responded to calls for a welfare check on a man — later identified as O’Malley — found on the side of a road in Van Buren. The man, who had a stab wound to his chest, was already dead.
Further into their investigation, detectives with the Van Buren Police Department found that several witnesses saw O’Malley and Tabor fighting with each other earlier the same day.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
Police said that according to witnesses who saw the physical altercation between Tabor and O’Malley in the early morning hours of April 6, Tabor “struck” O’Malley at one point, causing the alleged victim to “make a high pitch scream and fall backwards.” One witness told police that after landing the alleged blow to O’Malley, Tabor returned to the vehicle he arrived in — which authorities say was stolen from Little Rock, some 150 miles southeast of Van Buren — and yelled, “I’m a real deal killa!” before driving away.
According to the affidavit, one witness called 911 to report the altercation. Another witness can be heard in the background of the call saying, “[H]e just stabbed that dude.”
Robert Snider, a witness to the alleged altercation, spoke to local CBS affiliate KSFM and described the fight to the station. Snider said, “When I tell you they were fighting, they were fighting. One guy was on top of the other, slamming his head into the curb.”
Snider told KSFM that he had seen the fight while driving and pulled over to attempt to intervene and separate the two men. He initially called 911 at 2:47 a.m., but dispatchers and officers reportedly said they could not find anyone at the scene.
The affidavit stated that O’Malley’s body was found at 11:20 a.m. on April 6. The Arkansas State Crime Lab medical examiner determined his cause of death to be a stab wound to the chest; the manner of death was ruled to be homicide.
The car Tabor allegedly drove to and from the scene of the crime was later found at the apartment complex where he lives. A knife was also found near Tabor’s apartment.
According to reporting by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Tabor was already in custody for the theft charge when he was charged with O’Malley’s murder. He is being held at the Crawford County Detention Center on $255,000. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
The post ‘I’m a real deal killa!’: Teen bragged after fatally stabbing man during a fight then fled the scene in a stolen car, police say first appeared on Law & Crime.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Jamie Frevele
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://lawandcrime.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
