Adult dancer headed to prison for role in co-worker’s killing at Wichita bikini club
A Sedgwick County judge on Monday ordered a Wichita woman to spend life in prison for her role in the shooting death of a fellow employee in a bikini bar parking lot in 2020.
A jury in August found Autumn S. Metcalf guilty of solicitation to commit murder in the first degree and first-degree premeditated murder in the Aug. 24, 2020, killing of 33-year-old Joe G. Wheeler III after they argued at Baby Dolls, an adult entertainment club at 4900 N. Arkansas in Wichita. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Sedgwick County District Attorney’s spokesman Dan Dillon said Judge Eric Williams sentenced Metcalf “to the Hard 50, which is life in prison with parole eligibility after 50 years” for the first-degree murder charge.
Williams tacked on another 61 months — more than five years — for the solicitation count, Dillon said by email.
“Judge ordered the sentences run consecutively which means if she is granted parole after 50 years, she must then serve the 61-month prison term,” he wrote.
Wichita police found Wheeler with two gunshot wounds to the head on the ground by a red Jaguar sedan behind the club shortly after 9 p.m. Witnesses told police Wheeler stayed at the bar after he had worked his shift and fought for hours with Metcalf, a dancer, about him calling her derogatory and sexually provocative names, according to a probable cause affidavit. Multiple people told police they overheard Metcalf threaten have someone come to the club to hurt or kill Wheeler in retaliation, the affidavit says.
The club manager later found Wheeler slumped over and bloodied in the driver’s seat of his car. They pulled him out to perform CPR.
According to a defense motion, Metcalf testified at her trial that Wheeler “threatened her and committed battery on her” the night of the shooting and “continued his aggressive behavior towards her and her family” as they were leaving the club. Metcalf also testified that Wheeler “was reaching for a weapon when her brother shot him ... in self-defense,” according to the motion.
Dillon said Monday that no one else had been charged in the case to date.
