Stabbing leads to suspect’s arrest

A Carroll County man was arrested after a stabbing recently at an apartment building outside Eureka Springs.

According to a probable-cause affidavit written by investigator Shaun Helmlinger of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, he was advised at 12:35 a.m. Saturday, April 22, that a female had been stabbed multiple times at an address in the 200 block of Huntsville Street.

While Helmlinger was en route to the scene, the affidavit says, he was notified that the victim, Candice Randall, was being transported to Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville “due to the severity of the injuries sustained.”

At the scene, Helmlinger found a pool of blood, the affidavit says. The suspect, Scott Pike, refused to identify himself despite being asked to do so multiple times, according to the affidavit.

Helmlinger writes that he spoke with the resident of a neighboring apartment who told him that Pike had left several threatening and harassing letters in front of her door. Randall approached Pike’s door, the affidavit says, and Pike answered the door with a hammer in his hand. Pike and Randall struggled over the hammer, Helmlinger writes, with Randall eventually gaining control of it.

Scott then stabbed Randall repeatedly with a fixed-blade hunting knife, the affidavit says, before Randall and the neighbor were able to escape to the front of the building and call 911.

According to the affidavit, photos taken by EMS personnel showed Randall with blood covering her face and an approximately two-inch laceration above her left eyebrow that appeared to have extended down and penetrated slightly into her nose. Her right shoulder sustained two severe lacerations with one approximately three inches long, the affidavit says. EMS personnel advised that it was possible that an artery was struck. The other wound in Randall’s right shoulder was approximately two inches long and two to three inches deep. She also sustained a laceration across the inside of her hand indicating a possible defensive wound, the affidavit says.

Pike, 47, was arrested on charges of first-degree battery and obstruction of governmental operations. He is being held in the Carroll County Detention Center in Berryville on $250,000 bond.

The Wanderoo Lodge and Gravel Bar, where Randall works, established a GoFundMe account to help with her medical expenses as well as the cost of hiring an attorney to seek compensation.

“Candy has been released from the hospital and is focused on healing and recovering,” a post on the GoFundMe page says.

By Monday morning, May 1, more than $6,600 had been donated through the GoFundMe page.