photo by: McPherson County Sheriff's Office

Ansley Katherine Fogle

A woman accused of helping a homicide suspect evade law enforcement was convicted Tuesday in a plea agreement in Douglas County District Court.

Ansley Katherine Fogle, 25, of Topeka, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of a low-level felony: obstructing apprehension by harboring or concealing a person who has been charged with a felony. According to charging documents, she was originally charged with making a false report to law enforcement, as well, but Senior Assistant District Attorney David Greenwald said Tuesday that that charge was dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Fogle was accused of concealing Mehki McDaniel, 20, of Topeka, who was convicted in April in the shooting death of 18-year-old Topeka resident Peyton Whitaker. The fatal shooting took place on Nov. 24, 2021, in the 200 block of Yorkshire Drive in Lawrence. McDaniel was originally charged with second-degree murder and six counts of theft of a firearm, but he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of theft as part of a plea agreement, as the Journal-World previously reported.

photo by: McPherson County Sheriff’s Office

Mehki McDaniel

During McDaniel’s plea hearing, Greenwald told the court that if the case had gone to trial, the jury would have heard testimony about McDaniel and an associate selling multiple stolen guns in the basement of a house on Yorkshire Drive. Greenwald alleged that while McDaniel was showing a stolen handgun, it went off and struck Whitaker in the side, leading to his death.

On Tuesday, Greenwald alleged that Fogle was at the house on Yorkshire Drive the night that Whitaker was shot and that she and McDaniel fled to Western Kansas. Greenwald said Fogle kept in contact with another woman who was there that night and told that woman that she and McDaniel planned to flee to Texas. Fogle and McDaniel were arrested on Dec. 6, 2021, in McPherson County after a coordinated effort by Lawrence police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the McPherson County Sheriff’s Office.

Fogle, who is represented by defense attorney Michael Clarke, remains free on a $5,000 bond, which she posted in December. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 9.

McDaniel, who was represented by defense attorney Branden Smith, is currently in custody at the Douglas County Jail and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 19. Before McDaniel accepted the plea agreement in April, Judge Stacey Donovan said that his prison sentence could be as high as 136 months, or more than 11 years, but that because he had little to no criminal history he would likely be sentenced to less than that, possibly as little as 24 months.