Judge hands down 50-year sentence to man in 2018 murder case
A 42-year-old was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison for killing a homeless man and leaving his body in the backyard of an abandoned central Lubbock home three years ago.
Kethan Anderson entered a guilty plea on Oct. 27 before Judge William Eichman in the 364th District Court, where he is charged with murder in the June 2018 strangling death of Richard Bradley Richards.
However, Anderson's plea was not a result of a negotiation with the Lubbock County District Attorney's Office. Instead, Eichman will determine Anderson's punishment after a pre-sentencing investigation is completed.
On Wednesday morning, after a daylong punishment hearing on Tuesday, Eichman told Anderson that the evidence he heard showed he was a danger to society.
"The victim did not deserve it even if he did what your co-defendant said he did," Eichman said. "Death is not and should not be the consequences of that act."
Anderson's charges stem from a Lubbock police investigation that began on Nov. 28, 2018, when skeletal remains were found in the backyard of an abandoned home in the 2100 block of 20th Street.
Lubbock homicide detectives identified Anderson and Anna Smith as suspects in the death two days later. Both are being held at the Lubbock County Detention Center.
Preliminary findings by the Lubbock County Medical Examiner’s Office show Richards died from strangulation.
Smith was arrested Nov. 30, 2018, in Burleson and Anderson was arrested Dec. 3 in Hereford.
The remains were later identified by the medical examiner's office in January as Richards'.
Witness statements led investigators to suspect the case was a homicide and that Anderson and Smith were involved, an arrest warrant states.
The warrant states Anderson bragged “to numerous people since this incident occurred about choking a man and killing him in a backyard.” Neither defendant knew the man prior to the killing, the warrant states.
Investigators initially identified Smith as someone who was present during the killing and she told investigators she was sleeping in the home and woke up to a man exposing himself over her while she was asleep.
She and Anderson left the home and returned about an hour and half later to confront the man.
Smith reportedly told investigators she pulled a knife on Richards and Anderson tackled him to the ground. She told investigators she held down Richards while Anderson strangled him to death, the warrant states.
Smith said they left the house with the man in the same spot police found the skeletal remains in the backyard, the warrant states.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Kethan Anderson sentenced to 50 years in Lubbock murder case
