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Kansas City Man Who Told Murder Victim’s Family ‘It Was Worth It’ Gets Two Life Terms

Peggy Lowe
/
KCUR 89.3

A Kansas City man who gunned down a romantic rival was sentenced to two life sentences Thursday, despite a prosecutor’s plea for a 100-year term that could act as a deterrent to more “senseless killing.”

Dairian Stanley, 22, showed no emotion as Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Charles McKenzie handed down his sentence. Stanley was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action but was acquitted of kidnapping.

Stanley killed Torrence “Trimmer” Evans on a Sunday morning in September 2016, the day before Evans’ 26th birthday. Stanley was angry that his girlfriend had been with Evans and told her, “If I can’t have you, can’t nobody have you.”

The first-degree murder conviction requires a mandatory sentence of life without parole. But Prosecutor Christopher Acurso asked McKenzie to give Stanley a second, 100-year sentence on the armed criminal action conviction.

Acurso noted that minutes after Stanley was convicted on January 17, as he was being lead back to jail by a deputy, he passed a dozen members of the Evans family, looked them in the eye and said, “It was worth it.”

Credit Jackson County Detention Center
Dairian Stanley as he appeared in a Jackson County Detention Center photograph in 2016.

Noting Kansas City’s “notoriety" for a high crime rate, Acurso said a 100-year sentence would help prevent other such murders.

“One zero zero years,” Acurso said, enumerating 100 out loud, “and here’s why: because the state wants to deter anyone else thinking of another senseless killing in Jackson County is worth it.”

Public defender Paige Bremner said the request was “ridiculous.” Such a sentence would not deter someone who is angry and ready to be violent, she said.

“That’s not somebody who’s going to be deterred because ‘Oh, I heard about this dude who got 100 years,’” Bremner said. “He’s already looking at life without parole!”

Instead of 100 years, McKenzie imposed a second life sentence, which is legally considered roughly 30 years. He also thanked the Evans family for their “calm and courage”during a difficult two-week trial.

Stanley’s case was the subject of a story in KCUR’s six-part series “The Argument,” an in-depth look at the more than 200 homicides in the Kansas City area in 2016.

Peggy Lowe is an investigative reporter at KCUR. She's on Twitter at @peggyllowe.

I’m a veteran investigative reporter who came up through newspapers and moved to public media. I want to give people a better understanding of the criminal justice system by focusing on its deeper issues, like institutional racism, the poverty-to-prison pipeline and police accountability. Today this beat is much different from how reporters worked it in the past. I’m telling stories about people who are building significant civil rights movements and redefining public safety. Email me at lowep@kcur.org.
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