PLATTE CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City man was sentenced Tuesday to 350 days in jail for his role in the July 2010 murder of 17-year-old Spencer Crosthwait in Parkville.
Christopher Carpenter, 22, was in the backseat of the car when Justin Dougan shot Crosthwait at about 1:00 a.m. on July 29, 2010.
Prosecutors say Carpenter helped hide the rifle used in the homicide and charged him with Conspiracy to Tamper with Evidence.
Dougan is serving two life sentences. Another man, Stephen Ellis, was driving the car and is serving a 25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder and armed criminal action.
According to prosecutors, Ellis drove to Dougan’s house shortly after midnight on July 29, 2010. Prosecutors say that Dougan came out of the house with a rifle, got into the back seat of Ellis’s car and said “somebody just robbed me, and we are going to go shoot them.”
At approximately 1:00 a.m., as Crosthwait was waiting on a traffic light at the intersection of 45 Highway and 9 Highway, Ellis drove up to the driver’s side of his car and yelled “shoot” immediately before Dougan fired the deadly shot.
The only passenger in Crosthwait’s vehicle then drove the car to the parking lot of a nearby Price Chopper, where a manager called 911. Parkville Police officers arrived on the scene, where Crosthwait was pronounced dead.
Prosecutors say that the confrontation began as a dispute over a girl and some money that Dougan claimed was owed to him.
Click here for a story from February when Stephen Ellis was sentenced.
