A Jackson County judge has ordered back-to-back life sentences for a 61-year-old man convicted of fatally stabbing a member of the Missouri National Guard along I-470 in an act of road rage three years ago.
Nicholas M. Webb, of Pleasant Hill, was assigned the punishment four months after he was found guilty at trial of second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of 23-year-old Cody Harter.
Before the May 2018 killing, Webb had spent time in state prison for a separate murder committed in 1980.
The sentences, issued by Judge Marco Roland on Friday, represent the maximum under Missouri law for each charge.
A Lee’s Summit police officer found Harter stabbed to death on May 5, 2018 after responding to a crash in the area of I-470 and the merge with Missouri Highway 291. Callers were advising police that there was a man lying on the ground and bleeding.
Harter was pronounced dead at the scene by responding firefighters.
One witness told an investigating officer that there had been a fight between Harter and another man who had been driving a silver car. At one point, Harter was seen holding his hands in the air and retreating before the men both pulled to the shoulder of the road. The silver car was later seen speeding down the highway.
Police landed on Webb as a suspect after interviewing several witnesses and receiving information from a confidential source. During an initial interview with detectives, Webb allegedly told them he had exchanged words with a man near the scene of Harter’s death but that the encounter was no big deal. He claimed at the time that he had nothing to do with the killing, court records state.
Shortly after Harter’s death, the Harter family came forward asking the community to help police solve the killing. The family described the 23-year-old as a kindhearted and generous young man who served a tour in Iraq as a loadmaster with the Guard.
Webb, who turns 62 later this month, was sentenced in 1981 to 35 years in prison for a killing in Cass County. He was released less than a year before Harter was killed.
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