ST. LOUIS • A Riverview man charged Saturday with stabbing and strangling a woman in her car previously served nine years in prison for fatally beating a 3-year-old boy, court records show.
Dominic O. Arrington, 38, of the 10000 block of Toelle Lane in Riverview, was charged Saturday with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the killing of April Fields, 25, of Berkeley. A ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Court judge ordered Arrington held without bail.
Fields was found stabbed and strangled about 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 8 outside an apartment complex in the 800 block of Rivertrail Court on the northern edge of the city near the Mississippi River.
Court records say Fields was attacked about 9:30 a.m. that day by a man who hid in her parked vehicle outside a ºüÀêÊÓƵ day care.
Video surveillance from the at 6155 West Florissant Avenue, shows a large man with a limp sneak into the back seat of Fields’ vehicle while she was inside the day care to drop off her daughter. After Fields returns to her vehicle, the car “surges and rocks a number of times,†court documents say. Then, a “large individual gets out of the left rear passenger seat and into the driver’s seat, and drives away.â€
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Arrington weighs at least 300 pounds and walks with a limp from right knee injury, police say.
Police found Fields’ vehicle at a laundromat at 5907 Goodfellow Boulevard, court records say. Surveillance video shows the same large man parking the car in the laundromat’s lot, the records say. Inside the vehicle, police found a cigarette butt with DNA matching Arrington. Police arrested Arrington, who denied being in Fields’ vehicle.
Arrington, who has used the name Dominic O. Wilson, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1995 for killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son, Timothy Waters. On Nov. 24, 1993, police say he punched the boy several times at a home in the 2700 block of Hickory Street in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
The boy was taken to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center, where he died. Arrington initially told police the boy had fallen off a bed, but later admitted to police he had lost his temper and hit the boy, authorities said.
Arrington was released from prison on parole in July 2004.
Fields’ mother, Patricia Long, of Florissant, says she has never heard of Arrington.
“I’ve never seen that guy,†she said. “I know it’s still being investigated, but I have no idea.â€
Long said her focus has been caring for her granddaughter, Skylar, and letting her know that her mother loved her.
“I miss her so much, words can’t even explain,†Long said. “It’s like a hole in my heart. I tell her every day that Mama’s up in the heavens and that she’s looking down on her, smiling. “
Fields worked for the past three years at Continental REO Services, an Olivette-based real estate company. She served on the company’s charity committee, helping coordinate the company’s team for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in 2011 and 2012. Fields had taken business classes at the University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ and the Kaplan University Learning Center, and was working toward her bachelor’s degree.