Inset: Carter Joshua Curtis (Bates County Sheriff's Office). Background: The area near where Curtis shot and killed his father in Adrian, Mo. (Google Maps).
A Missouri man will spend decades behind bars for shooting and killing his father in a crime he insisted "had to" be done.
Late last week, Carter Joshua Curtis, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder for killing 41-year-old John McMurphy.
Immediately following Curtis' guilty plea, 27th Judicial Circuit Court Judge M. Brandon Baker sentenced him to 20 years in prison with credit for 613 days spent in pretrial detention.
The underlying incident occurred on Sept. 28, 2024, at a residence on 8th Street in Adrian, a small town roughly 55 miles due south of Kansas City and part of the broader metro area.
At 11:23 p.m., Carter called 911 to report that he had shot his father, according to a probable cause statement filed by the Adrian Police Department. Various law enforcement agencies arrived within minutes of the emergency call, police say.
"I arrived on scene," an officer wrote in the charging document. "I met two white females in the driveway that were hysterical."
There was also a juvenile present outside, the officer wrote. The document is heavily redacted but notes that someone shouted as police began to survey the scene: "He has never been violent."
Inside, the officer described seeing the victim visible from the entryway. The older man was found dead with a clear "gunshot wound to the head," lying face down on the kitchen floor, police said.
The weapon was a Mossberg Patriot .308 caliber, a bolt-action rifle typically used for long-distance shooting.
"[T]here was a spent shell casing still in the chamber upon recovering the rifle," the probable cause statement reads. "There was a magazine in the rifle that did not have additional bullets in it."
Minutes later, the defendant was found and arrested one block away from the scene of the crime, according to law enforcement.
The victim's wife told police she woke up to the sound of a gunshot, according to the probable cause statement. After that, she said she walked into the hallway where Curtis was standing with the rifle, which he handed over to her. Then, she said, he just walked down the stairs.
"I already called 911 and I had to do it," the killer allegedly told the victim's wife as he walked away.
Eventually, she went downstairs herself. There, she described finding her husband, "face down in the dining room by the table."
The defendant was originally charged with one count each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, but those charges were reduced and dismissed, respectively, under the terms of his plea deal.
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