On the morning of May 3, 2025, Pine Bluff police responded to a reported domestic disturbance at Park View Apartments on West 13th Street. Officers arrived shortly before 10 a.m. at apartment 23 and encountered a man, later identified as 54-year-old Melvin Sanders, who refused to open the door and barricaded himself inside. A standoff with negotiators and the S.W.A.T. Team lasted nearly three hours before Sanders surrendered shortly before 1 p.m. and was taken to a hospital with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to his hand.

After Sanders was secured, officers entered the apartment and found 43-year-old Yashika Morris with apparent gunshot wounds. A representative from the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office pronounced her dead at the scene. Morris was a licensed insurance agent and a graduate of Pine Bluff High School and Arthur’s Beauty College. She is survived by three children and a granddaughter.

No booking had taken place before Sanders was released from the hospital and was set to be booked into the Jefferson County Jail on a charge of Capital Murder. Did anyone in Pine Bluff know Yashika or have information about her last known movements before May 3?