Leavenworth ? Sixteen months after his 11-year-old son’s mangled body was found alongside the Kansas Turnpike, Raymond Boothe pleaded no contest Wednesday to a reduced charge of second-degree murder.

“He acknowledged what he did. He made a plea offer and we accepted it,” said Leavenworth County Atty. Frank Kohl, shortly after Boothe’s court hearing, which lasted about 20 minutes.

Under the state’s sentencing guidelines, Boothe could be sentenced to between 155 and 165 months in prison, or about 13 years.

Boothe won’t be sentenced until after a pre-sentence investigation is filed with the court. The report is due Jan. 30.

In earlier hearings, Lawrence and Leavenworth County detectives said Boothe, who has a history of mental illness, confessed to killing his developmentally disabled son, Levi, on Aug. 27, 2002. The reason, detectives said Boothe told them, was that he heard God’s voice on his car radio telling him to kill the boy.

In their testimony, detectives said Boothe confided that while driving, he tried unsuccessfully to strangle Levi with one hand. Boothe said he stopped his car, dragged the boy into a nearby ditch and stabbed him several times with a pair of needle-nose pliers and a “folding Buck knife.”

Boothe said he then dragged Levi from the ditch, flung him onto the turnpike and, before leaving, ran over him once with his right front tire.

Levi Boothe’s body was found about 10 p.m. in the outer westbound lane of the turnpike near mile marker 207 in Leavenworth County.

An autopsy determined Levi Boothe had died from multiple blunt trauma, possibly caused from being struck by vehicles.

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Two hours later, Lawrence Police arrested Boothe after he crashed his car through a fence at 27th Street and Lawrence Avenue in an apparent suicide attempt.

In pleading no contest, Boothe waived his right to a jury trial. Consequently, legal issues surrounding Boothe’s mental state at the time of his son’s death will not be aired in court.

“That’s disappointing, it’s an opportunity lost,” said Roy Menninger, past chairman of the Menninger Foundation and retired CEO of the Menninger Clinic, which recently relocated from Topeka to Houston.

The likelihood of Boothe spending more than 12 years in prison only adds to the ever-growing number of adults who, because of their mental illness, are incarcerated, Menninger said.

“More and more, we are criminalizing insanity,” Menninger said. “Our jails and prisons — rather than hospitals and hospitalization — have the become our largest mental health facilities. Clearly, this is an issue that’s not getting the attention it deserves in (Boothe’s) case and others.”

Reduced charge

After the hearing, Boothe’s attorney Gary Fuller declined to meet with reporters. Boothe’s mother, father, and sister also left the courtroom without comment.

Boothe’s wife, Lisa Boothe, did not attend the proceedings.

Kohl said he accepted Boothe’s plea and agreed to reduce the initial charge of first-degree murder to second degree to avoid the risk of a jury finding Boothe not guilty.

Kohl said he and Fuller were prepared to argue, respectively, that Boothe was sane and insane.

“The state’s evaluation said the defendant was competent to stand trial,” Kohl said. “The defense had an independent evaluation that said he was not.”

Also, Kohl said, “In a case like this, the victim’s survivors are his parents and grandparents, who also happen to be the defendant’s wife and parents. That tends to complicate things.”

Kohl said it was unlikely Boothe would be able to rescind or appeal his plea. “After today, he’s severely limited on that,” Kohl said.

“Didn’t make sense”

Shortly after Boothe’s arrest, Lisa Boothe told the Journal-World her husband had once been committed to an Iowa state hospital for the mentally ill, in 1992.

Raymond Boothe’s behavior, Lisa Boothe said, had not been a problem until about two weeks before Levi Boothe’s death.

“He started saying stuff that didn’t make sense, and when you’d ask him what he was talking about, he’d sort of snap out of it and say ‘Oh, what? Never mind,’ and that’d be it. He’d move on to something else,” Lisa Boothe said.

“It’s like you knew something was going on, but you didn’t know what it was,” she said.

Married 14 years, Lisa and Raymond Boothe lived in Cameron, Mo., with three of their four children.

Police suspect that on Aug. 27, 2002, Raymond Boothe drove to Creston, Iowa, where Levi lived in a group home for developmentally disabled children. From there, the father and son drove to Osborn, Mo., where Levi’s two sisters, then ages 9 and 7, and his 6-year-old brother, were staying with a sister of Boothe’s.

Leaving Osborn, Boothe and the four children headed south.

Lisa Boothe said her children later told her that Levi was crying when they left him on the turnpike.

By the time Boothe crashed the family’s car in Lawrence, the three children were asleep in the back. All three were wearing seat belts and survived.