Man Sentenced to Life Without Parole over 2020 Home Invasion That Left 21-Year-Old Dead in Arkansas

An Arkansas man was sentenced to life in jail over a 2020 house invasion and housebreaking that finally became a case of admitted homicide.

Travis Trustin, 26, pleaded responsible to taking pictures and killed 21-year-old Chase Reel on the latter’s house in Fayetteville, Ark. through the early morning hours of Oct. 3, 2020. The sufferer had gone bowling together with his roommate, Jacob Hogue, and different associates on the evening in query. The roommates arrived again house to discover a housebreaking already in progress.

Based on a courtroom report by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Washington County Prosecuting Lawyer Matt Durrett ran down the collection of occasions that led to the lack of Reel’s life throughout a listening to wherein the defendant realized his destiny on Monday.

Hogue was reportedly the one that first made contact with Trustin contained in the condominium at round 1:00 a.m., the prosecutor defined, and was shortly positioned beneath gunpoint by his assailant. That standoff lasted for some half-hour, Durrett mentioned, till Reel later arrived again house. Upon seeing what was taking place, Reel made his strategy to his bed room to be able to seize a rifle and was shot by the defendant, the listening to revealed.

Across the similar time, Durrett famous, an onlooker was already within the strategy of a 911 name. That onlooker described a shot – the shot that took Reel’s life. The pistol used within the killing had been obtained by Trustin contained in the residence he had come to steal from.

The prosecutor famous that neither roommate had recognized their attacker earlier than that evening.

After the primary shot was fired, Hogue reportedly went for Trustin. A battle ensued throughout which a number of extra bullets had been unloaded from the gun; nonetheless, nobody else was shot through the chaos. After shedding the gun and making a bid to retrieve it, different onlookers joined in, tackling the defendant and holding him till police arrived, the courtroom proceedings once more reportedly revealed.

Trustin was arrested on prices of capital homicide, aggravated residential housebreaking, and kidnapping, in accordance with a contemporaneous report by space FOX affiliate KNWA.

On the time of his arrest, and through the brief size of his time as an grownup, the defendant distinguished himself as a profession prison of types, the TV station reported. He had three circumstances in opposition to him pending when Reel was killed and had been arrested a half dozen instances since turning 18. Whereas already behind bars following the homicide, a warrant was issued in opposition to him on a rape cost for allegedly having “sexual activity or deviate sexual exercise with one other one who was incapable of consent as a result of the sufferer was bodily helpless, mentally faulty, or mentally incapacitated.”

For taking a plea deal, the loss of life sentence was taken off the desk in lieu of a sentence of life in jail with out the potential for parole; the residential housebreaking cost was dropped.

Trustin was moreover sentenced to 40 years in jail for the kidnapping cost.

Courtroom information reviewed by Regulation&Crime present the defendant initially entered a not responsible plea in November 2021.

Based on the Democrat Gazette, Trustin was all-but silent through the proceedings that sealed his destiny. He reportedly declined to make a press release regardless of being supplied to take action, however did reply a query when requested through the change in plea listening to.

“Do you perceive that life with out parole means precisely what it says?” Washington County Circuit Choose Mark Lindsay requested.

The defendant replied within the affirmative.

Trustin’s sentencing order will be learn in full beneath:

[image via Washington County]

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