The Garden City Telegram
NEW E-Edition!
Subscription
Required
Add Your Comment | Read (0) Comments
Judge convicts man in teen's death after he pleads no contest
Published 2/3/2012 in News
By DARCY GRAY
Special to The Telegram
GREAT BEND — A Great Bend man has pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death last July of a 15-year-old Garden City girl who was reported as a runaway.
Joseph Jeffrey Rykiel, 31, entered the plea Wednesday in Barton County District Court, and District Judge Ron Svaty convicted him of the crime.
The involuntary manslaughter charge — amended from the initial charge of aggravated indecent liberties with a child — indicates Rykiel acted recklessly in the death of 15-year-old Jessica Shearer, whose body was found on the Fourth of July in a basement room Rykiel was renting at a Great Bend home.
Three days before her death, Shearer was reported missing from the Barton County Youth Care Home, a local shelter for girls.
Shearer died as a result of "mixed drug intoxication — essentially an overdose," Barton County Attorney Doug Matthews said Thursday.
Great Bend residents Jackie McHolland and Mary Coker previously told The Hutchinson News they began renting a room in their basement to Rykiel on Feb. 23, 2011. McHolland said his prescription medication was stolen while he and his family were out of town.
Rykiel, who remains jailed on $100,000 bond, is scheduled for sentencing April 2 and faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, Matthews said. The prosecution dismissed additional charges of criminal sodomy and aggravated endangering a child.
Kansas Department of Corrections records show Rykiel previously served time for possessing drugs in 1999 and 2000 in Neosho and Crawford counties; driving under the influence in 2000 in Crawford County; aggravated robbery in 2002 in Labette County; and drug possession in 2001 in Labette County.
He was previously paroled to Reno County in 2007, violated parole and then was paroled out of state to Tennessee in 2009 before his sentence expired in February 2011.
Found 0 comment(s)!