Jerry Dean Hopper, Jr., who is already serving time in the state prison system, was given eight more years on amended charges during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
The 44-year-old Hopper faced charges related to threatening his ex-wife, their children and her current spouse, and in another instance with luring a woman to his home where he kept her against her will and physically attacked her.
The kidnapping charge stemmed from an event in November last year when Hopper is alleged to have contacted a woman with whom he had a relationship, telling her he had quit drinking and was undergoing withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea.
The woman told investigators she had taken several items, including soup and nausea medicine, to Hopper’s residence east of Mountain Home.
She told investigators while in the house, Hopper became belligerent. The victim reported Hopper would not allow her to leave. She said when she attempted to flee the residence, Hopper grabbed her by the throat with both hands, pushed her across the room, threw her onto a couch, jumped on her and hit her on the left side of her face.
The victim said she tried to get up several times but Hopper restrained her. She said she was finally able to get out of the house and into her car to make her escape.
The victim reported she was “terrorized, injured and caused incidents to endure pain” for a majority of the 45 minutes she was being held in Hoppers’ house.
According to court records, the victim had a bruised left eye, bruises on both sides of her throat as well as on her neck and arms and a bite mark on her hand.
She showed investigators text messages, Facebook posts, and two short videos taken with his phone in which Hopper was reported to have apologized for the incident and pleaded with the victim not to press charges.
Hopper had the same type of trouble in Greene County, located in Northeast Arkansas, where he was found guilty for terroristic threatening and first-degree stalking. The Greene County charges were filed in 2015 and stemmed from alleged threats Hopper made to a woman reported to be an ex-girlfriend living in Paragould at the time the charges were filed.
During the time officers were searching for Hopper on the Greene County charges, he was spotted parked locally at a Baxter County business and became involved in a high-speed chase in early 2015.
The chase, which reached speeds exceeding 99-miles-per-hour, ended with Hopper barricading himself in his home. At one point, during the event, he could be seen hanging out an upstairs window inviting police to shoot him. He was eventually talked into coming of the house and surrendering by an acquaintance.
Hopper is currently an inmate in the North Central Unit of the State Prison System at Calico Rock.
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