A man accused of walking into a Springdale apartment and shooting Simone Livingston dead while he napped on his couch won't face a jury anytime soon — because the system says he's not fit to stand trial. Ray Charles Jordan, 67, had his capital murder case stayed Monday after a psychologist and a Pulaski County judge both found him unfit to proceed, leaving a grieving family with no accountability and no timeline.
Jordan is charged with capital murder, aggravated residential burglary, aggravated assault, and being a felon in possession of a firearm in Washington County Circuit Court. According to Arkansas Online, defense attorney Bill James filed a motion for a fitness evaluation, and Dr. Julia M. Wood evaluated Jordan on February 25, 2026, finding him not fit to proceed. Pulaski County Circuit Court adopted those findings on April 20, 2026. Washington County Circuit Judge Beth Bryan granted the motion and stayed the proceedings pending a mental examination at the Arkansas State Hospital.
Here's what sticks: Jordan was competent enough to give police a detailed confession. According to a probable cause affidavit from Springdale detective Elizabeth Whitaker, Jordan told investigators that someone drove him to Springdale two to three weeks before the killing to murder Livingston, but Livingston wasn't home. The person who drove him handed him a pistol, showed him the apartment, and told Jordan "that was where the guy who snitched on him was at." Jordan admitted he returned on April 7, 2023, entered the apartment, and shot Livingston — though he claimed he didn't know Livingston had died until police told him.
Jordan was already sitting in Pulaski County jail on unrelated charges — breaking or entering, theft of property, first-degree criminal mischief, and obstructing governmental operations — when he gave that interview on March 16. Deputy prosecutor Dylan Weisenfels said restoration efforts in the Washington County case could track with the Pulaski County cases, but added, "I can't say for sure on that since we are split between counties."
So a man charged with capital murder — punishable by death or life without parole — who understood enough to recount the hit-style killing to detectives, now can't understand the charges against him well enough to face them in court. The competency evaluation system exists for a reason: the Constitution doesn't permit trying someone who genuinely cannot assist in their own defense. But the gap between "confessed to murder in detail" and "can't understand the proceedings" is where victims' families get stranded.
Simone Livingston was asleep on his couch when a man with a gun walked in. The courts will decide if Jordan is eventually restored to competency. What they can't restore is the time Livingston's family spends waiting for an answer.
