JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A man who avoided prosecution in two assault cases has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Christmas Eve slaying in Joplin.
49-year-old Artilius Jordan was sentenced Monday for second-degree murder in the killing of 47-year-old Sean Harris and two counts of second-degree assault. Jordan originally was charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutors said Jordan opened fire in 2017 outside the apartment of his girlfriend, where Harris had been staying. Jordan then pistol-whipped his girlfriend and tried to shoot her in the back seat of an extended-cab pickup truck. The shot missed his girlfriend and passed through the head rest of the driver's seat, splitting into fragments, one of which hit the driver.
Previous efforts to prosecute Jordan in a 2013 stabbing and a 2015 shooting failed after the victims declined to testify against him.