“I did what I had to do to get away,” Baxter County, Ark. woman arrested in fatal shooting investigation

BAXTER COUNTY, Ark. (KY3) - A woman from Mountain Home, Arkansas was arrested over the weekend after deputies found the body of a man with a gunshot wound Saturday evening.

According to a news release from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office, a man called the sheriff’s office Saturday night asking for someone to be removed from a house at a different location.

The man told deputies someone was hanging around his daughter the past few days, so he requested a welfare check on her.

Two deputies went to her house on Old Arkansas Road and found a dead man lying partially outside the open doorway. According to the sheriff’s office, the deputies entered the house and found 38-year-old Kristy Shay Leedham-Johnston.

She was found outside peeking into the residence through the back door. Deputies called to her, and she immediately raised her hands and spontaneously stated, “He’s a really bad guy. I did what I had to do to get away.”

According to the news release, deputies later searched the house and found a gunshot wound on the man. He has been identified as 48-year-old Mark Dennis Mucha of Mountain Home. Deputies also found a gun and a knife outside the house.

Leedham-Johnston was read her rights and refused to answer questions and asked for a lawyer. She has been booked in the Baxter County Detention Center on charges of first-degree murder. She has not been formally charged.

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