James Myers, one of five charged in the March 2016 death of Iolan Shawn Cook, has entered a plea agreement, admitting his role in helping conceal the crime.
Myers, 60, pleaded no contest Tuesday to four counts of interfering with law enforcement by tampering with evidence. In exchange, Allen County Attorney Jerry Hathaway said he was dismissing a first-degree murder charge against Myers.
The pleas came during an Allen County District Court hearing in front of Judge Daniel Creitz.
Myers will be sentenced Nov. 20.
Another plea deal may be in the works for one of Myers’ co-defendants, Iolan Rhonda Jackson.
Creitz scheduled a hearing for Oct. 23, at which point Hathaway and Robert Myers, Jackson’s attorney, said they hoped to have the framework for the deal in place. No other details were announced. If a deal cannot be reached, Jackson’s bench trial will begin Nov. 27.
If Jackson enters a plea agreement, that would leave only one of the five defendants — Joshua Knapp of Fort Scott — still facing the original first-degree murder charge. Knapp’s jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 13.
Amber Boeken pleaded guilty in February to a charge of second-degree murder, in exchange for her testimony against the other defendants. She has yet to be sentenced.
The final defendant, Jessica Epting, pleaded guilty in January to obstruction of justice, and was given a suspended jail sentence. Epting is back in custody on an attempted murder charge stemming from an unrelated incident in Iola in July.
AT TUESDAY’S hearing, Hathaway spelled out the basis for each of the the tampering charges levied against Myers prior to and following Cook’s death on March 13, 2016.
— Myers loaned his pickup to Knapp, and then when Knapp returned the pickup, took the vehicle to a car wash to clean Cook’s blood out of the back. (One of Knapp’s co-defendants, Amber Boeken, testified previously that Knapp and she took Cook to a remote location in Allen County in Myers’ vehicle, whereupon Knapp stabbed Cook. The pair eventually transported Cook to another vehicle — Myers’ pickup was low on fuel — and Cook was taken to the Neosho River northwest of Iola, killed and dumped in the river.)
— After washing the truck, Myers removed the truck’s bed liner in an attempt to hide it, although the liner later was found by police.
— Myers took and destroyed Cook’s cell phone.
— After Boeken and Knapp returned Myers’ truck, Myers took a bag of their soiled clothes — “wet, muddy and covered with blood,” Hathaway said — to a remote location in Allen County and burned them. The burn site, too, eventually was found by law enforcement.
Neither Myers nor his attorney, Brian Duncan, disputed any of those statements, with a caveat.
Duncan said Myers was unaware why Knapp originally asked to borrow his truck. He also said Myers was unaware it was Cook’s phone he destroyed, nor did Myers know the contents of the bag he burned.
Following Myers’ plea, Creitz agreed to lower Myers’ bond, to $100,000. He denied a defense request to allow Myers free on his own recognizance, after Hathaway pointed out that while the tampering charges were significantly less serious than first-degree murder, “he was responsible for concealing a lot of evidence to cover up somebody’s death.”
Kansas sentencing guidelines for tampering with evidence — considered in this case a non-person felony — range between seven and 23 months in prison. Probation also is possible for such crimes, depending on the defendant’s criminal history.
Creitz scheduled a presentence investigation to determine Myers’ criminal history prior to his Nov. 20 sentencing.
COOK’S death on March 13, 2016, triggered a countywide manhunt a few days after his family reported him missing. His body was found more than two weeks later along the banks of the Neosho in rural Coffey County.
