She let him live in her Shawnee home; now he’ll stay in prison for beating her to death

A 55-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the 2016 killing of a Shawnee woman.

Gregory Paul Wright II was sentenced in Johnson County District Court where he pleaded guilty in November to first-degree murder in the killing of 44-year-old Monica Lee.

Wright will have to serve 25 years in prison before he can ask for parole.

Lee was found dead on May 9, 2016, inside her apartment in the 7500 block of Flint Street.

According to prior court statements, she and Wright were friends and he had been staying at her apartment for several weeks before she was killed.

An autopsy determined that she had been beaten to death. Crime scene investigators found a hammer and two broken iron skillets that appeared to have been used to kill her.

Lee was found with her arms and legs bound with electrical cords and a trash bag over her head.

After she was killed, Wright stole her car and was arrested several weeks later in Virginia.

This story was originally published January 10, 2018 at 2:27 PM with the headline "She let him live in her Shawnee home; now he’ll stay in prison for beating her to death."