MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) -- A third man who Riley County police say played a part in a four-year-old Manhattan murder case has entered a plea of no contest and is awaiting sentencing.
Mekel McAlpine, 26, of Junction City, is charged with Aiding a Felon in the 2007 murder of 21-year-old Terrell Morris. The deadly shooting took place at the Flint Hills Place apartment complex off of North Manhattan Avenue, where police say Morris lived.
At 4:30 AM, on Saturday January 27th, 2007, the Riley County Police Department received a 911 call reporting a man was injured inside the residence of 1369 Flinthills Place. Upon arrival, uniformed officers found Terrell Morris' body.
Two other men, Kenneth Dotson and Marchello Woods, have already been convicted in connection with Morris' death. Police say Mekel McAlpine drove the getaway car and helped get rid of evidence. RCPD records indicate he was arrested on December 17, 2010.
On Tuesday, February 7, 2012, the Riley County Police Department's Public Information Officer Lieutenant Josh Kyle released the following statement:
"A Junction City man entered a plea of 'no contest' February 6th, 2012 in the Riley County District Court in reference to his part in a 2007 murder.
Mekel Anthony McAlpine, age 26, pleaded no contest to charges that he aided a felon, Kenneth Durell Dotson, in a murder which occurred the night of January 27, 2007 in Manhattan, Kansas. On that night, Kenneth Dotson shot and killed local resident Terrell Morris at a local housing complex.
Following an extensive investigation which had been ongoing since 2007, Mekel McAlpine was found to be the driver of the vehicle that delivered Kenneth Dotson and Marchello Woods to the apartment of Morris on the night of January 27, 2007. Following the murder of Terrell Morris, Mekel McAlpine drove Dotson and Woods away from the apartment and ultimately assisted in disposing of evidence related to the murder."
Kenneth Dotson, 29, was arrested several months after the shooting on March 12, 2008 by the Salina Police Department on a Riley County warrant for Murder in the 2nd Degree during a traffic stop near his Salina home. He was convicted in 2009 of Voluntary Manslaughter and firearms charges after entering a plea of no contest in Riley County District Court to the lesser charges. He is currently serving a sentence with the Kansas Department of Corrections at the Lansing Correctional Facility. According to the Department of Corrections website, his earliest possible release date is April 26, 2014.
Marchello Woods, 29, was arrested on April 28, 2009 on a warrant for Voluntary Manslaughter. He was later convicted in 2010 on a lesser charge of Aiding a Felon. He is on parole with the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Mekel McAlpine is already in prison doing time on unrelated charges out of Geary County. The Kansas Department of Corrections website indicates that he was sentenced in Geary County in December of 2010 on charges of Flee/Attempt to Elude a Law Enforcement Officer, Aiding a Felon, Aggravated Intimidation of a Witness or Victim and Traffic in Contraband. A sentencing date for McAlpine on his charge stemming from the Terrell Morris investigation is set for March 12, 2012 at 10:30 AM in Riley County District Court.
Lieutenant Kyle could not provide any details on the motive in the murder case. He says the detectives who have been investigating Morris' death over the past several years "want members of the public to know that it doesn't matter how old a case is, they're going to see it through to the end and make sure that all of the parties involved are brought to justice."
Captain Jeff Hooper, who oversees the Riley County Police Department's Investigative Division, says the murder was a case of a drug deal gone wrong. He says investigators followed up on Morris' murder for years because they knew a third person was involved and worked to build their case against the suspects.
In 2009, after Kenneth Dotson pleaded "no contest" to his manslaughter charge, Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson said that Terrell Morris had purchased cocaine from Dotson on January, 26, 2007 in Junction City. Later that evening, the two had a phone conversation, after which Dotson and his two accomplices went to Morris' residence in Manhattan. Wilkerson said Dotson thought he was being set up and that his life was in danger and he shot Morris multiple times. Wilkerson said Dotson was charged with manslaughter instead of murder because Dotson had not entered the scene with the intention of killing Morris, but had the option of not killing him.
Prosecutors say the difference between pleading "guilty" and "no contest" is that when a defendant enters a plea of "guilty, they're admitting to all of the facts that the state alleges in the complaint against them. A "no contest" plea means that the defendant does not agree with all of the facts in the compliant but believes the state will be able to convict them at trial.
