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Woman gets 50+ years for murder at Wichita bikini bar

Woman gets 50+ years for murder at Wichita bikini bar

Yahoo10-03-2025

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – A Wichita woman will be almost 90 years old before she gets out of prison. On Monday, a judge sentenced her to the Hard 50 for a murder outside Baby Dolls bikini bar in 2020.
Last August, a jury found Autumn Metcalf, 34, guilty of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit first-degree murder in the death of 33-year-old Joe Wheeler III.
Metcalf and Wheeler were working at Baby Dolls, 4900 N. Arkansas. On the night of Aug. 24, 2020, witnesses told police the two were arguing for up to two hours.
Later, Wheeler was found shot to death inside a Jaguar in the parking lot. Metcalf was arrested and charged two years later.
Some Kansas lawmakers want to end daylight saving time, how do some Kansans feel?
On Monday, District Judge Eric Williams sentenced Metcalf to the Hard 50 for the first-degree murder charge. It means she will be in prison with no parole eligibility until 50 years have passed.
The judge sentenced her to 61 months (5 years) for solicitation to commit first-degree murder. The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning that if she is granted parole after 50 years, she must then serve the 61-month sentence.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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These 13 Fake Stories Were Made by AI— and Folks Are Falling for Them Left and Right
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These 13 Fake Stories Were Made by AI— and Folks Are Falling for Them Left and Right

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Woke police chiefs whinge about underfunding when the real problem is their warped priorities
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Yahoo

timea day ago

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Woke police chiefs whinge about underfunding when the real problem is their warped priorities

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So let us hear no more whingeing about underfunding leading to reduced services and driving officers away. Blame a warped sense of priorities promoted by activist police chiefs, a shameful betrayal of the British bobby and the demonisation of ordinary people for expressing legitimate fears. If the police have lost the support of Telegraph readers, then they are lost indeed. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

‘My jag got stolen and the police did nothing – here's how I got it back'
‘My jag got stolen and the police did nothing – here's how I got it back'

Yahoo

time2 days ago

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‘My jag got stolen and the police did nothing – here's how I got it back'

On television, a crime scene is usually theatrical: chalk outlines, flashing sirens and anxious bystanders whispering behind yellow tape. In reality, (well, my reality anyway) a crime scene is like any other Tuesday morning in leafy west London – just with another car sitting in the space where our Jaguar E-Pace was supposed to be. For a moment, I doubted myself. Had I parked it around the corner? I called my husband Mark who was working (he is a litigator while I am a former lawyer-turned-mediator and coach) to see if he had moved it overnight. When he confirmed he hadn't, we were utterly baffled. This wasn't the first car that had vanished from that spot: about seven years ago our Fiat Abarth had been stolen and, concerned about that, Mark had installed a second immobiliser in the Jaguar on top of the one it came with. This required the driver to press a series of buttons to turn it on – I often had trouble with it so couldn't imagine how a criminal would be able to bypass it. 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He grew up in Kent, while I'm a born-and-bred Londoner and have always found it to be an incredibly safe place. I simply couldn't believe that I would be hurt in broad daylight in this city I have always called home. Mark was also worried that people might be hanging around the car while I felt that anyone who steals cars wouldn't want to show their face and so would be unlikely to confront us. In retrospect, I wonder if – as a man – Mark thought he needed to protect me, whereas I didn't feel that responsibility. I just wanted to get the car back as quickly as possible. My biggest fear was that we would find the AirTag abandoned on the tarmac – so much of modern life is about being disappointed, that this seemed the most likely scenario. So when we turned onto the road and saw the Jaguar sitting there, I was delighted. And maybe a little triumphant that our adventure had concluded so well. We inspected the car. Outside, it was untouched, but inside it was a bit of a mess: ripped up carpets and air vents torn apart. Clearly, someone had tried to bypass the immobiliser but failed. Their efforts however, meant the car was now locked; even though we had the keys in our hands, there was no way of getting it home. We stood on the empty street, which had a small block of council flats on one side, for a few minutes before deciding to go back to our house and sort out the problem from there. A couple of hours later, after proving ownership, the Jaguar was delivered on a flatbed by a tow-truck company. Over time, we started piecing together what had happened. The AirTag showed that the car had been in Brook Green at 3.20am, and the neighbours said they had heard a commotion about an hour or two after that, which they had assumed was the binmen coming early, but which must have been the criminals loading the car onto a flatbed. The police had asked us to keep them informed, so we called 101 and told them what had happened. As for fixing the car up, that has been relatively easy – we had to sort out the immobiliser and then put the carpets and the air vent back as they were. The incident occurred last Tuesday and by the weekend, we were driving it to the countryside. I felt slightly icky as we set off, knowing that strangers had been inside, but mostly I was okay. They weren't too disrespectful, and I was grateful for that. What hadn't been made clear was that by fixing it up and then using it, we were destroying evidence. When forensics examined the car a week after the incident, they said there was no hope of finding any usable DNA as far too many people handled it in the interim. Yes, it would have been inconvenient not to use it, but we would have done so if it meant they could have gathered some evidence. Not telling us this was an oversight on the police's part and one I found very frustrating. Still, I am keen not to place too much blame on them. Blame feels good – but it is too simplistic. An officer once told me that it is normal to have 20 urgent calls on a peak night and only two to three people on duty. It is so easy to say that the increase in crime is all the police's fault – but the reality is more complex. The system is broken: there is too much focus on locking people up, but putting them in prison just teaches them how to become better criminals. If you rehabilitate them, then they become better members of society. Sadly, this is not popular with voters - but my hope is that public opinion can change. Mostly, I worry about deterrents. If there are none, crimes like these will only proliferate. The people who stole my car were sophisticated criminals: they knew how to hack an immobiliser and had access to a flatbed. We need to ask whether it is good for society that the police force lacks the funding to investigate them properly – and think seriously about what the consequences of not doing so might be. As told to Melissa Twigg Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

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