A 1903 Arkadelphia shooting left one man dead and another on the run. The perpetrator could not be found, and no arrests were made in the months and years following the crime. However, after more than three decades, new information surfaced, bringing back interest in the case—In 1937 Arkadelphia Police Chief Ed Bloomfield received a telegram from the Chief of Police of Miami, Florida: “Informed you want Ad Neal for murder of policeman. Advise. Will Arrest.” Bloomfield, who had served in law enforcement in the town for fifteen years, knew nothing of the crime.

Officials began investigating the matter but faced multiple obstacles with the 34-year-old case. After the telegram’s arrival, Clark County Sheriff A.N. Shaw, Chief Bloomfield, and others initiated a search for records pertaining to the case, seeking paperwork surrounding an indictment. However, such a file would have been placed in the courthouse basement with other “old papers” decades earlier and could not be found. Plus, no witnesses to the event remained alive. With neither documentation nor witnesses, only Neal’s voluntary confession would make it practical to bring him back to Arkadelphia for trial.

The Southern Standard originally told of the affair in January of 1903 when Ad Neal allegedly shot Little Rock detective C.M. Kenney. Kenney was believed to have come to Arkadelphia to investigate whiskey suppliers in the area and may have even testified to a Grand Jury against Neal. Officers and some townspeople believed that Neal’s wagon yard to be a “blind tiger” and the source of much of the illegal liquor being sold in Arkadelphia at the time. Weeks earlier, some 200 bottles of whiskey had been seized at the place. Neal and Kenney clashed on a downtown street and gunfire ensued. Kenney died of his wounds a few days later.

A witness believed Neal to have been wounded, but no clues shed light on his whereabouts. It was initially thought that Neal left town, for his horse was not in its stable. However, it was learned that he had previously sold the horse. Neal disappeared and officials came to believe that he never returned to the scene (or town) of the crime.

J.H. Abraham was sheriff at the time of the shooting. Abraham and his deputy, Roy Golden, who himself had served as Sheriff, made many journeys across the United States following clues related to Ad Neal. For five or six years they looked diligently for the shooter. From time to time a tip would be received from another state, resulting in hundreds of miles of travel for the sheriff and deputy. Abraham even spent time in the North Carolina area from which Neal had come, waiting and watching, in the hope that Neal would appear at the home of family or friends. They never found him. Legendary Clark County Sheriff J.H. Abraham served for twenty-five years, and local lore tells that Neal was the only criminal to elude him and escape punishment. According Roy Golden, Ad Neal’s evasion of arrest always irked Abraham.

Clark Countians never learned what Ad Neal did during those thirty-four intervening years or afterward. How did he make a living? How could he so successfully elude law enforcement? Did he commit any crimes? Did he change his name? Officials could not locate anyone by the same name anywhere in the country. Interestingly, Miami police did not reveal how they came to know that Neal was wanted in Arkadelphia, and apparently no one followed up on the matter. Many questions remain unanswered.