Video of the Jan. 17 shootings at the Jayhawk Cafe shows the two underage murder defendants in the case sneaking into the bar through a side entrance and fighting with staff, including one of them brandishing a handgun and pointing it at a bouncer's head before exiting the bar, Lawrence police reported in an arrest affidavit.
After that, the confrontation quickly turned deadly when that gunman — Caiden Clem, ...
A defendant in the Jan. 17 fatal shooting at the Jayhawk Cafe is claiming that he should be immune from prosecution because he was acting in self-defense when he heard "multiple gunshots in close proximity to him."
Hearing those gunshots entitled 18-year-old Daitron Daniels Strickland to pull his own handgun out and start shooting without aiming it at anyone, his attorney, Razmi Tahirkheli, has written in a ...
A man was ordered to stand trial on charges of rape and aggravated sexual battery in Douglas County District Court after a woman testified Friday that he sexually attacked her on two occasions in 2024.
The defendant, Marlon D. Watson, is now scheduled for trial in June.
The 27-year-old woman testified that Watson, whom she met at their shared place of employment, raped her on her living room couch in August ...
Updated at 6:38 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22
A Douglas County judge on Thursday sentenced a man to 12 years and three months in prison for rape after a jury last year rejected his claim that the sexual violation had innocently occurred while he was asleep.
The victim in the case, a 30-year-old woman who now lives out of state, asked the court for "the most severe sentence under the law," or nearly 14 years, which ...
A 21-year-old Texas man is being held on a $500,000 bond in the Douglas County Jail after being charged with two sex crimes involving children.
The man, Dominik Jamal Smith, of Irving, Texas, made his first court appearance Wednesday before Judge Amy Hanley, who appointed defense attorney Michael Clarke to represent him and kept his bond set at half a million dollars. Smith will appear in court again on Jan. 28 ...
A 44-year-old Lawrence man was sentenced to just over 17 years in prison Wednesday for child abuse; aggravated indecent solicitation of a child; and violation of his probation in an earlier crime against a child.
Joshua William Spence was originally charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child but pleaded no contest in October 2025 in Douglas County District Court to child abuse by impeding the ...
