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WICHITA, Kan. – While the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of aggravated robbery in association with the murder of Joshua Haines, arguments in another case against 34-year-old Jose Delacruz will be heard on Tuesday.
Delecruz was also found guilty of contempt of court for refusing to testify in a murder trial of co-defendant Anthony Waller. He was sentenced to 9-years in prison in that case by Judge Joe McCarville. The sentence was also ordered to run consecutive to the nearly 7-years he received in the aggravated robbery case. He had been found “not guilty” of murder, but convicted of the aggravated robbery charge against him and sentenced to 83-months in prison.
Other suspects in the case included Vassie Coons who entered pleas to aggravated robbery, possession of cocaine, possession of methamphetamine, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana while the murder charge against him was dropped. That was part of a plea agreement. Coons was given the maximum sentence for the aggravated robbery conviction. He was sentenced to 119-months, or nearly 12-years in prison.
Waller, the man the state suspected of being the main person responsible for the murder was sentenced to 40-years in prison for his involvement in the murder which occurred on April 10, 2010.
The case center on Haines being savagely beaten and strangled in Coons apartment and then placed in his own car and driven to a nearby street where it was found later that day.
The hearing for Delacruz is scheduled at Wichita State University at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning.