photo by: Richard Gwin

Shaun Arnold, of the Shawnee Police Department, and his dog Gio work the crime scene Tuesday, May 26, 2015, of a fatal stabbing at 700 Arkansas St.

Nearly a year after Tracy Dean Lautenschlager was found bleeding to death in a McDonald’s parking lot, a jury on Friday found Joshaua Back guilty of intentional second-degree murder.

The jury also found back guilty of felony theft in the trial, which began Monday.

Back, 34, was accused of stabbing 45-year-old Lautenschlager in the neck outside a home at 700 Arkansas St. in the early morning hours of May 25, 2015. He then fled in a stolen truck, police said.

photo by: Richard Gwin

Joshaua Lee Back

Lautenschlager was found bleeding in the parking lot of McDonald’s at 1309 West Sixth St. He was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital where he was declared dead.

Back was arrested in Leavenworth County on May 27, 2015. The stolen truck was recovered the day before near a Bio-Food plant in Jefferson County.

Between the evening of May 24 and into the morning of May 25, 2015, Back told police in a recorded interview, he and others traveled between the Arkansas Street home and another home at 3009 Steven Drive. He had been looking for some of his lost belongings, he said.

Back also told police he planned to steal a truck from the Arkansas Street home as collateral for a drug debt he was owed.

On Wednesday, jurors watched nearly three hours of video from Back’s interview with police. Back did not testify during his trial.

Unable to find what he was looking for, Back returned to the Arkansas Street home to steal the truck, he told police.

Before he returned to the home, and minutes before Lautenschlager was fatally wounded, he and Back were caught on camera at the Zarco 66 gas station at 2005 W. 9th St., police testified. At the convenience store, Lautenschlager bought $4 worth of gas for his white SUV while Back cleaned his rear window. The two then drove away, heading east.

In his police interview, Back told detectives another friend, Jeremy McCarty, drove him back to the Arkansas Street home for the final time that morning. But Prosecuting Attorney Amy McGowan said in her closing statement that wasn’t possible because McCarty was already driving back to Oskaloosa and Back’s phone was in his vehicle, so the two would have had no way to communicate.

McCarty also testified earlier in the week that he did not give Back a ride back to the home.

Outside the Arkansas Street home, Back told police, he was confronted by Lautenschlager and another, unidentified man. A second man was never identified nor located.

Once confronted, Back said, he pulled a knife from his waistband and swung the weapon toward Lautenschlager. Then he circled around the block to steal the truck and drove back to Oskaloosa.

In his closing statements, defense attorney Branden Smith told jurors there was no evidence to support Back intentionally killing Lautenschlager. Earlier in the trial, Back’s second defense attorney, Dakota Loomis, said the incident was an act of self-defense.

Throughout the evening and into the morning, as Back searched for his belongings, he felt deceived by those around him, Smith said. Back also felt increasingly paranoid.

Witnesses testified throughout the week that many people were smoking both methamphetamine and marijuana the morning of Lautenschlager’s death.

In addition, Back had reason to be wary of those around him, Smith said. At least one person had been in the military, and Lautenschlager had several knives.

However, McGowan said the strongest argument for Back intentionally killing Lautenschlager was the nature of his wound.

“What is the primary proof of intent?” she said. “It boils down to that wound to his neck. That intentional cutting across a very vulnerable part of a person that caused his death.”

“There are two places that can guarantee that you are going to kill them,” she added. “With a knife that’s going to be straight into the heart or that’s going to be slicing open the neck, causing all the blood, where all those vulnerable veins and arteries are, to spill out. Those are the two places that you know you’re going to kill someone.”

On Thursday, Douglas County Coroner Dr. Erik Mitchell told jurors Lautenschlager’s wound was 6 inches long, spanning from back to front on his right side.

A “sharp object” caused Lautenschlager’s injury, but Mitchell could not say for sure whether that was a knife.

The wound cut through Lautenschlager’s external jugular vein and the front wall of his internal jugular vein, Mitchell said.

The clothes Back was wearing the morning of Lautenschlager’s death and the knife he said he swung in self-defense were never found.

Both marijuana and methamphetamine were detected in Lautenschlager’s bodily fluids during an autopsy, Mitchell said.

Jurors deliberated for about two hours Friday before returning with their verdict.

Douglas County District Judge Sally Pokorny ordered the completion of a pre-sentence investigation.

Depending on his criminal history, Back could face over 41 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction and as many as 17 months in prison for the theft conviction, said Cheryl Wright-Kunard, assistant to the Douglas County District Attorney, in a release.

The investigation results will be presented June 2 at 4 p.m. when Back is scheduled to appear in court to be sentenced.