By Steve Good

The reward for the arrest and successful prosecution of the man who attempted to shoot and kill an on-duty Malvern Police Department officer April 18 has topped the half-million dollar mark.

Westdale Asset Management of Dallas, Texas, has escrowed $500,000 in Summit Bank to be disbursed to the person or persons providing information leading to the conviction of the officer’s assailant.

The Malvern Daily Record learned Wednesday that MPD officials this week have verified the existence of the cash reward fund and that the only condition on its release is a successful prosecution of the assailant.

Rhonda Baird, a spokesman for the apartment development company, e-mailed various media on April 22, four days after the shooting incident, announcing the reward money would be escrowed at Malvern National Bank, but later the same afternoon sent a second e-mail saying the MNB had refused to escrow the funds.

The MDR held the story until the escrowed funds could be verified.

Westdale Asset Management’s principal, Joseph Beard and his wife Sherry, own property in Hot Spring County and have family ties to the area, the MDR has learned.

A woman identifying herself as Sherry Beard telephoned an MDR reporter two days after the press release, questioning why the MDR was “sitting on” the story. The reporter told her the MDR would run the story when the funds were escrowed and that fact had been verified by the MPD or independently by the MDR.

The woman who identified herself as Sherry Beard told the reporter that she had worked as a police officer in Texas. She also said that she has family in the Malvern area, but did not say specifically who they are.

A search conducted by the MDR of public records at the Hot Spring County Courthouse verified that the Beards own property in the county. The search also revealed that Sherry Beard is an aunt to the wife of the MPD officer who was shot in the incident.

MPD has declined to name the officer, citing its ongoing investigation of the incident.

Westdale’s $500,000 reward brings to $502,000 the total cash reward available to someone who can identify the officer’s assailant.

Malvern Lodge 55 of the Fraternal Order of Police has offered a $1,000 reward and the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has also offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the officer’s assailant.

PETA’s interest was sparked by reports that the officer’s assailant was allegedly illegally night hunting with a compound bow when the officer spotted him.