Bond for a Hot Springs man accused in the May 29 shooting death of his 6-year-old daughter was set at $250,000 during a hearing Wednesday in Garland County District Court, according to court records.
Jordan Thomas Chadick, 44, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of first-degree murder, punishable by up to life in prison, for the death of his daughter at his 200 Springwood Road apartment in what he has claimed was an accident where the gun “went off.”
Chadick appeared Wednesday with his attorney, Louis Loyd, of Malvern, and pleaded not guilty to the charge. Emily White, a special prosecutor with the state office of the prosecutor coordinator, appointed to represent the state, requested bond be set at $250,000, but Loyd argued for a lower bond accompanied by an ankle monitor.
District Court Judge Meredith Switzer sided with White and set Chadick’s bond at $250,000 and also issued court orders barring him from contact with his wife, Melissa Chadick, or their other juvenile daughter. It was noted Melissa Chadick has also filed a petition for an order of protection against her husband, which is pending.
Garland County sheriff’s Investigator Don Yoak, the lead investigator on the case, and Chadick’s brother also appeared at Wednesday’s hearing. A felony review hearing is now scheduled for Sept. 1, but White filed the charge directly to Garland County Circuit Court, Division 1, on Wednesday where an arraignment and plea hearing there is set for Aug. 28.
The autopsy report on the victim, who has not been formally identified in any of the documents released, listed the cause of death as homicide caused by a gunshot wound “through the top of her head, near the vertex.” The direction of travel of the bullet was in “a sharp downward, back to front pattern,” and created skull fractures, brain injury and massive blood loss.
Chadick was interviewed multiple times and reportedly stated he and his daughter got to his apartment between 5 and 5:30 p.m. that day and ate dinner, the affidavit states. The shooting reportedly occurred around 9 p.m.
Chadick said he carries a handgun, which he kept in a backpack near the living room. He could not recall in detail what happened to his daughter, but stated he believed he took the gun from the backpack before they went upstairs to bed.
Through the course of the interviews, Chadick reportedly gave “different versions of the events and circumstances” which led to his daughter’s death, the affidavit states, noting, “at times he drew diagrams of the scene and at times he reenacted the scene, alleging that the gun ‘must have’ discharged when it hit his leg.”
According to the autopsy report, Jordan Chadick’s recollection of the events leading to his daughter’s death “cannot be reconciled with the manner in which she died.”
After an investigation lasting just over two months, a warrant was issued for Chadick’s arrest Tuesday morning and he was taken into custody shortly before 1 p.m. and initially held on zero bond.
Read More: Bond set at $250K for father charged in daughter’s death