A Johnson County judge has sentenced a 19-year-old Gardner woman to more than 12 years in prison for her role in a deadly shooting in downtown Shawnee.
On Monday, Judge Christina Dunn Gyllenborg handed down the sentence to Kyleigh Guzman for a charge of second-degree murder and another for aggravated robbery in connection to the death of Jarod Rogers in November 2022.
Guzman received 147 months for the murder charge and 55 months for the aggravated robbery charge. The sentences are to run concurrently, according to a press release from the Johnson County District Attorney’s office.
Guzman, 17 at the time, was one of five teenagers charged with shooting and killing Rogers on Nov. 30, 2022, during what prosecutors described as a drug deal in downtown Shawnee that turned violent.
Rogers was killed in a parking lot
According to court documents, Guzman and four other people, all either 17 or 18 years old, arranged to meet Rogers the week after Thanksgiving in 2022 in order to buy marijuana with the intention of robbing him.
Rogers was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a parking lot behind a strip of businesses in the 11000 block of Johnson Drive in downtown Shawnee.
He was rushed to Overland Park Regional Medical Center in critical condition, where he died two days later.
One suspect still awaits trial
Fernando Gonzalez-Prado, now 19, is awaiting a jury trial currently scheduled for January 2025.
He is charged with first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated robbery. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
In March, another of the suspects, Fernando Reyes-Lara, 19, was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison for second-degree intentional murder and two counts of aggravated robbery.
Roger Hernandez, 19, was sentenced in June to 12 years in prison for one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of aggravated robbery.
A first-degree murder charge filed against Sabrina Clark, 19, was dropped in favor of two counts of aggravated robbery as part of a plea deal. She is now serving a sentence in the Johnson County Juvenile Correctional Facility until she turns 22-1/2 years old, according to court documents.
Rogers’ mother spoke at previous hearing
During the sentencing for Reyes-Lara, Jolene Blohm, Rogers’ mother, spoke of how much Rogers meant to his family and how senseless his killing was.
“Did (the suspects) think they were tough and cool?” she said at that time. “Is it cool to murder someone in broad daylight, shove them out from the driver’s side of their vehicle, leaving him on the ground for dead, alone in an empty parking lot?”
Blohm added: “Now, his little brother won’t have Jarod to be the best man in his wedding. His little sister will grow up without her oldest brother to protect her. His future nieces and nephews will never get to meet him. My son was not perfect by any means, but he didn’t deserve to die.”
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