JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) - A Joplin man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in a home-invasion killing.
The Joplin-Globe (http://bit.ly/13nnxQQ) reports that 21-year-old Johnathan Taylor was sentenced Friday for his role in the July 2012 death of 23-year-old Jacob Wages.
Prosecutors said Taylor and four co-defendants mistakenly believed that Wages had drugs and drug money.
Nineteen-year-old Daniel Hartman was sentenced to two life sentences for being the trigger man. Taylor's younger brother, Elijah Taylor, and two other co-defendants were sentenced to 15 years each in the crime after testifying at the trial of Hartman, who was an Oklahoma gang member.
Taylor was initially offered the same sentence if he pleaded guilty. But while Taylor was out on bond he was arrested twice, once in the robbery of liquor store clerk.