Phillips County man gets 30 years in Elaine shooting case

Treyton Russell, a 23-year-old from Wabash, received a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty in the Elaine shooting case that left two women wounded and ended the life of an unborn child.

Russell entered the plea Monday, March 2, 2026, to second-degree murder and first-degree battery. The court imposed 15 years on each count and ordered the terms to run concurrently in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

The case grew out of an April 2023 shooting on Oak Street in Elaine, where 30-year-old Parneisha Slater, who was about 25 weeks pregnant, and 38-year-old Sandy Williams were shot several times through the window of their apartment. Both women were flown to Regional One Health Medical Center in Memphis. A child inside the apartment was not injured.

Slater’s unborn daughter, Paisley, did not survive the gunshot wound. That death is what led prosecutors to elevate the case from the original charges to a murder count. Russell had been arrested on April 9, 2023, at his home in Wabash after the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office asked the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division to help with the investigation.

The plea brought a formal end to a case that had moved through Phillips County’s justice system for nearly three years. For Slater’s and Williams’ families, the sentence closes one chapter of the case while leaving in place the record of what happened in that apartment on Oak Street: two women shot through a window, a pregnant mother badly wounded, and a child lost before birth.

In a county where Elaine residents know how quickly a single act of violence can ripple through a small community, the sentence gives the court file a conclusion. Russell will serve his sentence under the Arkansas Department of Corrections, and the guilty plea resolves the murder and battery charges tied to the April 2023 shooting.