Judge sets March 6 preliminary hearing for sex offender accused in slaying, rape

<br>TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ A convicted sex offender accused of killing an elderly woman and raping another woman faces a March 6 preliminary hearing. <br><br>Tulsa County Special District Judge Cliff Smith

Thursday, January 24th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ A convicted sex offender accused of killing an elderly woman and raping another woman faces a March 6 preliminary hearing.

Tulsa County Special District Judge Cliff Smith scheduled the hearing during a court appearance Wednesday by David Chey Arkinson, 30.

Prosecutors charged Arkinson with first-degre murder for allegedly choking and beating Gwen Gershon, 75. She was found in her home Jan. 15.

When Gershon was killed, Arkinson already had been charged with two counts of first-degree rape and one count of forcible sodomy stemming from a Jan. 7 assault on a 56-year-old woman at her apartment. He was arrested Jan. 16.

Arkinson is a registered sex offender who was convicted in Illinois in 1992 of aggravated sexual battery, records show.

He was charged in Tulsa County in 1998 with four counts of sexually abusing three child relatives and was accused in one count of failing to comply with the sex offender registration act.

During his appearance by video, Arkinson indicated he had difficulty hearing the proceedings and needed a sign language interpreter.

In an affidavit he signed in that case in May 2000, Arkinson said he is ``60-68 percent deaf and I need a sign language interpreter because I have a very hard time understanding what's being said.''

At the request of a public defender, judges appointed the Tulsa Speech and Hearing Association to furnish an interpreter for him on different occasions in that case.

All of those charges eventually were dismissed without a preliminary hearing when officials could not find the children in order to secure their testimony.