Kansas teen who killed mom in 2018 pleads no contest to two charges
A teen who shot and killed his mother as she argued with his younger sibling at their sprawling Andover-area mansion in 2018 has pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and criminal use of a weapon.
Wednesday’s plea, the result of extensive negotiations between prosecutors and the boy’s defense attorney, comes nearly three years after 41-year-old Lisa Trimmell was fatally shot in the throat on June 20, 2018, after taking her two sons to a baseball game in west Wichita.
According to prosecutors, Lisa Trimmell “became upset” during a verbal argument with her 12-year-old son and made “physical contact” with him in the entryway of the home after the game. Her older son, who eventually was charged in connection with her killing, retrieved a gun from the back of a clock sitting on a shelf, returned to the entryway and shot her once, prosecutors say. He was 14 at the time.
The Eagle is not naming the boy because he was charged as a juvenile, and the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office did not seek to prosecute him as an adult.
Lisa Trimmell died from a single gunshot wound to the neck, according to her autopsy report. The autopsy also showed she had signs of alcohol use, including cirrhosis of the liver, and had been drinking leading up to her death. Exactly how her alcohol use might have played into the night’s events, or whether other factors played into the shooting, has long been a central question in the case.
Lisa Trimmell was in the throes of a divorce from her estranged husband, local orthodontist Justin Trimmell, and was living alone in the Andover-area home. Her sons were living with their father but had visitation with her.
The teen, now 17, will be sentenced on July 30. The maximum penalty he can receive under state law is 18 months of incarceration in a juvenile correction facility, followed by six months of aftercare, which is similar to parole for adults. But Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in a brief interview after Wednesday’s hearing that his office and the boy’s defense attorney will ask the judge to put him on probation instead.
The teen’s lawyer, Dan Monnat, declined to comment.
The teen was facing a charge of second-degree murder prior to Wednesday’s plea. Aggravated battery is a felony and criminal use of a weapon is a misdemeanor in Kansas. Both convictions may be expunged under state law.
