Prison sentence for man who shot best friend in head at Wichita apartment in 2019
An Independence, Missouri, man will spend six years, two months in prison for fatally shooting his best friend in the head at a Wichita apartment on April 12, 2019.
Wichita police have said Brandon C. Craig and 21-year-old Justin Lane, of Grain Valley, Missouri, were visiting another friend at 815 S. Emporia when they got into a fight, and Lane was shot once in the head. Circumstances surrounding the shooting were murky after it happened: Craig told police the gun went off when Lane handed it to him, then later changed his story and said Lane wasn’t touching the gun when it accidentally discharged, according to court records.
But police found that the gun had safety mechanisms that would have prevented those scenarios, the records say.
Craig also told police that Lane had been intimate with the mother of his child, according to the documents — a possible trigger for the deadly argument.
Craig, 25, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and aggravated battery in April.
Sedgwick County District Judge Kevin Smith handed down the 74-month sentence Wednesday, Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, said by email.
