15-year-old charged in fatal shooting of store clerk during robbery, Arkansas cops say

A 15-year-old has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk, a case many people felt was “unsolvable,”Arkansas police say.

Chanell Moore, 28, was shot and killed during a robbery of Doug’s Eastside Convenience on March 24, according to the Fort Smith Police Department.

The suspect, who was only recently identified, was wearing a black mask that covered the entirety of his face except his eyes and mouth. He stole several items from the store, and a Black SUV was revealed to be the vehicle the suspect was driving, police said.

The SUV, police explained in a news briefing Friday, May 5, was a key in the arrest of the suspect. A gun used in a December robbery in Barling, a neighboring town of Fort Smith, belonged to the owner of the Mercedes SUV, police said.

Kemuel Mark Andrew Stucki, 15, was identified as the suspect in the December robbery, Fort Smith police said. He is the son of the Mercedes owner.

Fort Smith Police Chief Danny Baker said Stucki wore the same clothing in both robberies. Evidence found during a search warrant linked him to the March robbery and killing, Baker said during a news conference.

Stucki was charged as an adult with first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and terroristic act for shooting at a citizen in the Doug’s Eastside parking lot.

Baker said officers “worked tirelessly since the night of Chanell’s murder to solve a case many feared might be unsolvable.”

“Certainly a troubling situation,” Baker said during the news conference. “It’s bad anytime a crime like this happens. When the perpetrator is a young person, it makes it even more difficult to process.”

Moore was a mother of four who worked at the convenience store for two years, her father told KHBS.

“She did everything she possibly could for them and then more. And what she didn’t do she asked me,” Charles Moore told KHBS.

Ashley Franks, who had known Chanell Moore since she was 16, told KFSM that Moore was planning on getting married soon to the father of her children.

“He is so destroyed right now, he doesn’t even know what to do,” Franks said, per KFSM. “He’s stuck with four kids that he didn’t plan on raising by himself.”

Fort Smith is about 160 miles northwest of Little Rock.

This story was originally published May 5, 2023 at 1:16 PM with the headline "15-year-old charged in fatal shooting of store clerk during robbery, Arkansas cops say."