Kansas City man is given life sentence in triple murder

A Jackson County judge sentenced a Kansas City man Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole for murdering three people in 2011.

Derek T. Hubbard, 49, shot and killed Stephanie Brown, Anthony Carlos Richardson and Richardson’s wife, Mary Richardson, during a small party in east Kansas City.

Allen Richardson, the Richardsons’ teenage son, survived the shooting spree and identified Hubbard as the gunman.

Before announcing the sentences, Jackson County Circuit Judge Justine E. Del Muro said she recalled hearing the son’s call to emergency dispatchers, in which he said that his parents had been killed.

A murderer who leaves a child without parents deserves a life sentence, Del Muro said.

Jurors convicted Hubbard of one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of armed criminal action.

Del Muro sentenced Hubbard to life without parole on the first-degree murder count, which was the only possible sentence, and to life on the rest, all to be served concurrently. To stack some of the sentences consecutively, as prosecutors had asked, would only be “symbolic,” she said.

Hubbard, who was removed from his trial this summer because he had been disruptive during jury selection, attended his sentencing hearing but made no statement.

This story was originally published September 19, 2014 at 3:27 PM.