Man, 30, pleads guilty to 2020 double slaying in Cherokee County, KS
A 30-year-old Columbus man pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in a double killing in Cherokee County last summer, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said Wednesday.
Mark Hopkins II will be sentenced Dec. 27 in Cherokee County District Court. Judge Robert Fleming accepted his guilty plea Wednesday in the shooting deaths of 27-year-old Blaze Swank of Scammon and 19-year-old Kylan Shook of Pittsburg. The pair were found dead in a rural part of Cherokee County near Northwest 19th and Cardinal Lane on June 14, 2020, the local sheriff’s office said at the time of the homicides.
Charges related to the killings are still pending against another defendant, Schmidt said.
Cherokee County is in the southeast corner of Kansas along the Missouri and Oklahoma borders.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 1:53 PM.
