KC man handed 49-year sentence for shooting girlfriend, killing her brother
A Jackson County judge sentenced a Kansas City man to 49 years in prison in a double shooting that injured his girlfriend and killed her brother in 2019 in southeast Kansas City, according to court records.
In an August bench trial, Judge J. Dale Youngs found Germon D. Stevens guilty of second-degree murder, first-degree domestic assault, third-degree domestic assault and two counts of armed criminal action for the shooting that wounded his girlfriend and killed her brother, 40-year-old Michael A. Lorthridge. Stevens had waived his right to a jury trial.
Youngs sentenced Stevens to 30 years in prison for the murder conviction, 30 years for the first-degree domestic assault conviction, four years for the third-degree domestic assault conviction and 15 years each for the armed criminal action convictions.
Youngs ordered the sentences for murder and one of the armed criminal actions to run consecutively — one after the other. He also ordered the sentences for first-degree domestic assault and the other armed criminal action to run consecutively.
However, those two sets of sentences, murder plus armed criminal action, and domestic assault plus armed criminal action, will run concurrently — at the same time. Finally, the four-year sentence for third-degree domestic assault will run consecutively to all the other sentences.
“The court’s intention is that Defendant’s total term of incarceration be 49 years,” Youngs wrote in the sentencing order.
According to court documents, Kansas City police officers responded to a disturbance about 7 p.m . on June 11, 2019, in the 7800 block of 118th Terrace.
Stevens’ girlfriend told police that Stevens shot her in the abdomen before shooting her brother, a father of five, multiple times at the couple’s home.
The night before the fatal shooting, Stevens’ girlfriend told prosecutors that he had assaulted her, but she didn’t call police because he was grieving the recent death of his daughter, according to court documents.
When Lorthridge learned of the assault the next day, he texted Stevens, who then then called back and told Lorthridge to meet him at the house.
When Stevens arrived at the hose, his girlfriend and her brother were already there, sitting in the driveway. Stevens got out of his car holding a pocket knife, his girlfriend told police.
After Lothridge told him to put the knife away, Stevens walked back to his car, and allegedly retrieved a handgun and began shooting, according to court documents.
