January 3, 2018

A death row inmate convicted of fatally beating an Augusta woman died Tuesday in an Atlanta prison hospital where he was undergoing cancer treatment.

 

Robert O. Arrington, 70, was convicted of the April 2001 murder of 46-year-old Kathy Hutchens. She and her dog were found dead in her George Road residence 10 days after she called the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office for help in making Arrington leave her home. They had dated and lived together for a short time.

His boot prints and fingerprints were found in Hutchens’ blood. When arrested on April 13, 2001, the day Hutchens’ body was found, he still had her blood on his boots, according to prior reports in The Augusta Chronicle.

Hutchens wasn’t the first woman Arrington beat to death. In 1986 he killed his 53-year-old wife, Elizabeth Arrington, then dumped her body in a ditch in Burke County. The murder charge in that case was reduced to voluntary manslaughter and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.