AR - Heaven Bolen, 26, fatally shot, Harrison, 22 Jan 2017 *Arrest*

Harrison Police Chief Paul Woodruff said police are still searching for Matthew J. Bolen, age 36, but Bolen is now considered a murder suspect after his estranged wife died Monday morning, Jan. 23.

Chief Woodruff said 26-year-old Heaven Bolen died Monday morning in the hospital where she was taken Sunday afternoon after suffering a gunshot wound to the head.

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The Boone County Sheriff's Department on Monday morning was searching for Bolen in a wooded area off Arkansas 392 south of Harrison. Officers believe he still has the borrowed handgun that he used to kill his wife.

Harrison Police Chief Paul Woodruff says his department was notified about the shooting at 1:19 p.m. Sunday. Officers found Heaven (pronounced hay-vin) Bolen lying face down in the street outside her home at 215 W. Prospect St. She'd been shot once in the head.

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Capital murder and kidnapping charges were filed Monday against a Harrison man accused of shooting his estranged wife in front of her house before leading police on a four-day manhunt.

Matthew Bolen, 36, borrowed a 9mm pistol from a friend Jan. 21 ostensibly to go coyote hunting, according to an affidavit filed Monday in Boone County Circuit Court.

The next day, he used the gun to shoot Heaven Bolen, 26, who died at a Springfield, Mo., hospital, Harrison Police Chief Paul Woodruff said.

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Woodruff said it appeared that Matthew Bolen planned to torture his wife before killing her. Heaven Bolen managed to escape and run from her house before Matthew Bolen chased her down and shot her in the back of the head around noon that day, Woodruff said.

"Obviously, his plan fell apart," Woodruff said.

Inside her house, investigators found a bag that contained a ball-peen hammer, a pair of wire pliers, a knife, tin snips, rope, duct tape, Matthew Bolen's truck keys and chewing tobacco, the police chief said.

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Bolen pleaded guilty to handcuffing and then shooting 26-year-old Heaven Bolen from Harrison on January 22nd. In the plea Statement, Bolen says he understands that she died wound at a Springfield Hospital from the gunshot the next day.

Circuit court Judge Gordon Webb sentenced Bolen to 40 years on the murder charge, 15 years on the firearm charge, and 20 years on the kidnapping charge all to run one after the other for a total of 75 years in a state correctional facility.

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