Nathan Eric McDonagh of Mountain Home, who was arrested after police found him in the children’s area of Hickory Park after midnight in mid-March, pled guilty to charges against him related to the event and was given four years probation during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
When they stopped to investigate what McDonagh was doing in the park at that late hour, the officers reported detecting the smell of alcohol on McDonagh as they talked to him.
The 35-year-old McDonagh said he did not have identification papers with him and initially provided the officers with a false name and date of birth. When told he would be fingerprinted, McDonagh remembered his real name and age.
According to the probable cause affidavit in the case, a loaded 9 millimeter pistol was found in the waistband of McDonagh’s pants. In court Thursday, McDonagh said he found the weapon in the woods near Walmart.
Identification numbers on the weapon had been removed. McDonagh said he should have turned the weapon over to authorities or thrown it away, but, at the time, “just didn’t know what to do with it.”
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