Pine Bluff Man Goes To Trial For 4th Time For Murder

With one overturned conviction and two mistrials behind them, Jefferson County prosecutors will put a Pine Bluff man on trial for the fourth time for a four-year-old homicide. Fred Minor Junior is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 28-year-old Jeffrey Moorehead on February 21, 2000. Minor was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to 15 years in prison but that conviction was overturned by the State Supreme Court. The high court said Circuit Court Judge Berlin Jones should have given the jury instructions on a lesser charge of manslaughter. A jury deadlocked in a retrial in July and in November Jones declared another mistrial before testimony began, citing allegations by both the prosecution and defense of improper contact between jurors and prospective witnesses and family members. The shooting followed a confrontation between Minor and Moorehead with Moorehead reportedly throwing a brick through a window of Minor`s car and Minor following Moorehead to the paint store and throwing the same brick through a window of Moorehead`s car. Moorehead was shot in the head and chest and was pronounced dead at the scene. Testifying in his own defense, Minor said Moorehead had threatened him several times.