Affidavit: Suspect in Lawrence homicide ‘laughed’ about victim bleeding to death

LAWRENCE – A recently released affidavit says a man charged in a Lawrence killing laughed about the victim bleeding to death.

The affidavit supporting the arrest of 34-year-old Joshua Lee Back says officers followed a blood trail and found 45-year-old Tracy Dean Lautenschlager bleeding outside of a McDonald’s.

After medics took him to the hospital, where he later died, police followed a blood trail back to a house in the 700 block of Arkansas.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that a witness told police that Lautenschlager, Back and a third man had smoked methamphetamine the night before.

The affidavit says the third man told officers that Back said he had “cut a person’s throat and laughed about the amount of blood squirting from the wound.”

Back, of Oskaloosa, Kansas, is charged with second-degree murder and jailed on $750,000 bond.

His defense attorney didn’t immediately return a phone call from the Associated Press.

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Affidavit: Suspect in Lawrence homicide ‘laughed’ about victim bleeding to death."