Wichita man pleads guilty to murdering estranged wife, a Marine Corps sergeant
A Wichita man has pleaded guilty to first-degree felony murder and aggravated kidnapping in the April 17 fatal shooting of his estranged wife at her east-side apartment.
Joshua Orlando, 29, is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 28 in the death of 25-year-old Ivy Unruh.
“He faces a minimum of 38.75 years in the Kansas Department of Corrections before he becomes eligible for parole,” Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Lyndsee Stover said by email.
Orlando entered the guilty plea to amended charges Wednesday. Originally, prosecutors charged him with one count of first-degree premeditated murder, which carries a life sentence with no parole for 50 years.
Orlando shot Unruh around 8 a.m. on April 17 at her apartment, 7272 E. 37th St. North. She died at Wesley Medical Center three days later.
Orlando claimed he shot Unruh in self-defense during an argument after he went to her apartment to drop off belongings and she hit him in the head. But others who knew Unruh told police her relationship with Orlando had been physically and verbally abusive and that she “was trying to get away from” him, court records say.
The couple had separated and were divorcing when the shooting happened.
Unruh was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and also worked as a broadcast engineer for local public television station KPTS, her obituary says.
