Man gets more than 6 years for killing friend

A Sedgwick County judge has ordered a Wichita man to spend six years and five months in prison for killing a friend during a drug-fueled argument earlier this year.

Joshua Thomas, 27, was sentenced Wednesday on one count of voluntary manslaughter in the March 3 death of 35-year-old Brandon Walters.

Walters was shot in the neck inside his home in the 1700 block of South Roanoke but staggered outdoors before collapsing and dying in his front yard.

A woman who witnessed the shooting told authorities Thomas and Walters fought over clothing and laundry, according to a police affidavit released by the court in May.

Authorities captured Thomas following an hours-long standoff near Kellogg and Edgemoor in April. Walters’ mother, Marcia Walters-Hardeman, in court characterized her son’s killing as a “senseless crime” and a “willful and brutal act.”

“The news of Brandon’s death was like a hot knife through my heart,” she said through tears on Wednesday.

To Thomas, she said: “You shot to kill, to end a life. No warning, no accident. It was intentional and complete.”

Defense attorney Quentin Pittman told the judge that Thomas “feels horrible for what has occurred.” But, he said, Thomas and Walters both were using narcotics and that Walters had attacked Thomas with a knife before the shooting happened.

The case, he added, is “a prime example” of why weapons and narcotics don’t mix.

Thomas pleaded guilty to the voluntary manslaughter charge in November. He was originally charged with second-degree murder.

District Judge Bruce Brown on Wednesday also ordered Thomas to serve 26 months in prison on a possession of methamphetamine conviction. It will be served consecutively, or back-to-back, with the sentence handed down in Walters’ homicide.

This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Man gets more than 6 years for killing friend."