photo by: Sara Shepherd

Steven A. Drake III appears in Douglas County District Court during a hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019.

Just days before he is set to stand trial in a murder case, a Lawrence man appeared ready to accept a plea deal Thursday to lesser charges in Douglas County District Court.

However, Steven A. Drake III, 24, refused at the last minute to appear at his scheduled hearing.

KiAnn Caprice Spradlin, Drake’s attorney, told Judge Kay Huff that Drake had been transported from the Douglas County Jail to the court building but would not come to the courtroom.

Huff said she took that to mean that Drake was rejecting the agreement — which would have had him plead no contest to voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the killing of 26-year-old Bryce S. Holladay in 2017 — and would now stand trial on the original first-degree murder charge.

Bryce Holladay

The trial is scheduled to begin Monday. Noting that Drake had refused to appear in court, Huff told his attorney that the trial would continue, regardless of whether he refuses to appear in court again.

Drake is accused of shooting Holladay to death on Sept. 19, 2017, in the doorway of Drake’s home in the 2000 block of West 27th Terrace. As the Journal-World previously reported, Drake told a 911 dispatcher that he had just shot Holladay in the face because he wouldn’t get out of his house.

Drake was also charged in two other cases involving people being killed or seriously hurt.

In June 2019, Drake pleaded no contest to attempted aggravated battery, a lower-severity felony than the aggravated battery charge he was facing, the Journal-World previously reported. Drake was accused of beating a 16-year-old boy in a fight, causing a serious head injury, on July 8, 2017. Huff sentenced Drake to 570 days in prison for the conviction.

Drake is also facing a vehicular manslaughter charge, which is a misdemeanor, in connection with a deadly crash on Nov. 6, 2016, just north of Clinton Lake. Taylor B. Lister, 24, of Lecompton, was killed in the crash. That case is set to go to trial in August, according to court records.

Drake also previously rejected a plea offer that would have ended all three of the cases. Through that proposed agreement, Drake was asked to admit to second-degree murder, a felony, in Holladay’s death, and also to plead as charged to aggravated battery, a felony, and vehicular homicide. He told Huff during a December 2018 hearing he “absolutely” rejected the agreement.