photo by: McPherson County Sheriff's Office

Mehki McDaniel

Updated at 5:38 p.m. Tuesday

A Topeka man was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County District Court to 46 months in prison, or nearly four years, for killing a man in Douglas County and for two counts of theft.

The man, Mehki McDaniel, 20, was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Peyton Whitaker, 18, of Topeka, on Nov. 24, 2021. He pleaded guilty in April to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of theft.

On Tuesday, Judge Stacey Donovan sentenced McDaniel to 34 months for the involuntary manslaughter count and six months each for the two theft counts, for a total sentence of 46 months, to run consecutively.

About 10 of Whitaker’s friends and family members attended the sentencing hearing in support of a strict sentence for McDaniel. Many of them were wearing orange shirts that said “Enough is Enough, End Gun Violence.”

Whitaker’s parents and other family members addressed the court. They spoke about how McDaniel and Whitaker were friends and said that McDaniel had just left his friend to die after accidentally shooting him.

Whitaker’s father, Shane Whitaker, said that he would never forget getting the call that his son had been killed.

“This Thanksgiving, the mother of our son called and she told me our son Peyton has died,” Shane Whitaker said.

He said that he had some pictures and videos of his son but that it pained him too much to watch the videos and hear his son’s voice.

“A person Peyton considered a friend shot him, then ran off to hide,” Shane Whitaker said.

Peyton Whitaker’s grandmother, Leanne Quinn, told the court that he was a kind person who would do anything to help someone in need.

“If someone he knew was hurt, he would help, not take off,” Quinn said.

Peyton Whitaker’s mother, Amanda Monaghan, told the court it had been 237 days since she last spoke with her son and joined the “club of mothers with dead children.” She said her son loved McDaniel and always saw the best in him.

Senior Assistant District Attorney David Greenwald said that even with the highest sentence imposed McDaniel would still have a second chance at life, something that his victim would not have. He said that the gun deal that McDaniel was making that day was not his first and that he had sold stolen guns before.

“He was gun running, and there is no other way to put it,” Greenwald said.

The act of accidentally shooting Whitaker was not excessively brutal, Greenwald said, but McDaniel’s reaction was.

“He left his best friend to die on the floor of a stranger’s house,” Greenwald said.

McDaniel also addressed the court and Whitaker’s family. He said he had prepared a statement but that it was inadequate. He said that he loved Whitaker and that the people who have called him a coward for running were right.

“I was there for him until he needed me the most. I know he needed me then. I was a coward. I was scared. I ran. I didn’t know what to do,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said that he had dropped out of college and started using meth after a mutual friend of his and Whitaker’s died by suicide, and he started down a path that eventually led to Whitaker’s death.

He asked Whitaker’s family to forgive him and said that he would “switch places” with their dead son if he could.

McDaniel was represented by defense attorney Branden Smith, who told the court that what happened to Whitaker could have happened to either one of the men since both were part of the gun sale.

“The unvarnished truth is that the victim was also involved in this, illegal gun sales,” Smith said.

The judge said she struggled with the decision to give McDaniel a prison sentence and that it was hard to find justice in the situation.

McDaniel has no prior convictions and was facing a sentence that fell on the border of probation and prison. Donovan said she was giving him the maximum sentence for a person with no criminal history for the charge of involuntary manslaughter.

As previously reported by the Journal-World, McDaniel accepted the plea agreement for the lesser charge last spring.

At that time, Greenwald told the court that should the case have gone to trial, the jury would have heard testimony that McDaniel and an associate had stolen multiple guns and were in the process of selling them in the basement of a house in the 200 block of Yorkshire Drive — and that while McDaniel was showing a stolen modified Glock handgun, it went off and struck Whitaker in the side, leading to his death.

McDaniel was arrested on Dec. 6, 2021, along with Ansley Fogle, 24, of Topeka, in McPherson County after a coordinated effort by Lawrence police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the McPherson County Sheriff’s Office.

McDaniel has been in custody at the Douglas County Jail on a $250,000 bond since his arrest.

Fogle was charged with interference with law enforcement and obstructing apprehension or prosecution, both felonies. As the Journal-World reported, Fogle pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge on July 12 and is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 9.