Although rare, Sunday’s quadruple murders in south Wichita are not the first in the city

Quadruple homicides are not common in Wichita, but there have been a few in the city’s history. Sunday’s shootings are just the latest in a series of shootings that left five people dead, including the shooter.

Wichita police said All five men were related to or knew the shooter. The victims were identified as Anthony Stickney, 67; Donald Dodge, 66; Terry Meyer, 55; and Alan Young, 39, all from Wichita. Police believe 42-year-old Joshua Stickney fatally shot four others before killing himself.

The reason for the clashes was not disclosed.

The circumstances behind the conflict are unknown. WPD Capt. Aaron Moses said Anthony and Joshua were father and son, Dodge was Joshua’s friend and neighbor, Meyer was Joshua’s living stepfather, and Young was one of Joshua’s neighbors. The bodies were found in three separate homes in south Wichita.

“Preliminary ballistics examination led to a presumptive conclusion that the firearm found near Joshua was the firearm used in all of the attacks,” Moses said.

Here’s a look at other Wichita quadruple murders from the past half-century:

Carr brothers

On December 15, 2000, brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr invaded a home in east Wichita. They terrorized the five people inside for hours before taking them to a field in northeast Wichita.

The Carrs were convicted of robbing, sexually assaulting and killing Aaron Sander, 29, Brad Heyka, 27, Jason Befort, 26, and Heather Muller, 25, and wounding the fifth victim. 29. Execution-style shooting on a snow-covered football field at North and Greenwich. Around the same time, they carjacked and robbed a 23-year-old man and shot and killed 55-year-old Wichita Symphony cellist Linda “Ann” Walenta.

Siblings found guilty of capital murder, among other charges and received the death penalty.

In 2014, Kansas Supreme Court reversed The Carr brothers were not sentenced to death, but were instead sentenced to life in prison without parole. Two years later US Supreme Court reappointed death sentences of brothers.

But they’ve been brothers for years continued to appeal the sentences. Sedgwick County Prosecutor Marc Bennett has previously said the brothers will likely continue to challenge aspects of the case in the coming years.

In April 2024, a Sedgwick County judge denied requests by Jonathan Carr, now 44, and Reginald Carr, now 46, to plead guilty to the crimes.

‘The Forgotten Four’

Just eight days before the Carr brothers were murdered, another tragedy occurred in Wichita.

On December 7, 2000, Cornelius Oliver shot and killed four people at a duplex in east Wichita. Relatives found the victims’ bodies, and Oliver was arrested later that day at his brother’s house with blood still on his shoes.

The victims included his estranged girlfriend, 18-year-old Raeshawnda Wheaton; Wheaton’s roommate, 17-year-old Odessa Ford; Ford’s cousin, 17-year-old Quincy Williams; and another man, 19-year-old Jermaine Levy.

Oliver, then 19, was dating Wheaton. It was reported that they had a violent relationship.

According to reports at the time, Oliver shot and killed Wheaton as she cowered in her bedroom, clutching a pillow, pleading for her life and saying, “I love you.” I love you.”

Three of his friends had been killed before this. Ford was shot and killed while trying to escape; Williams and Levy were shot in the back of the head while they were sitting on the couch playing video games.

Oliver confessed to the murders and was found guilty Four are considered first-degree murder. He is currently incarcerated at Hutchinson Correctional Institution, where he is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole until 2140.

Oliver’s victims were named as: “The Forgotten Four” by some in Wichita, because about a week after the shootings, attention turned to the murders committed by the Carr Brothers.

Dayton Street murders

An attempt to reclaim $27.50 resulted in four people being fatally injured in Wichita in 1974.

Beth Kuschnereit, 21 and Three more people were killed by James Eddie Bell on July 6, 1974. Gary Duvaul aided Bell in the crime and was convicted.

On the day of the murders, Kuschnereit had visited his family’s home in south Wichita. He later met up with a group of friends, including Bell and Duvaul.

The group went to a home on Dayton Avenue near Kellogg and Seneca to retrieve $27.50 that one of their friends said had been stolen. Kuschnereit waited in the car while everyone entered the house.

Bell shot 22-year-old James Waltrip inside the house; Oma Ray King Jr., 23; and Patricia Gindlesberger, 21.

Police said Gindlesberger was still alive after being shot, so Duvaul slit his throat. Kuschnereit was still in the car and unaware of what had just happened.

It was taken to an abandoned animal shed on a farm in nearby Butler County. Kuschnereit sat on his knees and prayed for two minutes before Bell shot him in the head. His body was found three months later.

Bell was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. The murders occurred two years after the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.

He has been denied parole at every hearing since becoming eligible in 1989. He died in prison on July 16, 2019, at the age of 74, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records.

Duvaul was convicted in Oklahoma in 1989 and released on parole; He died here in 2017.

Otero family and BTK

Dennis Rader, also known as BTK serial killerHe terrorized Wichita from 1974 to 1991. He was convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder in August 2005.

Rader was 28 when he killed his first victims, the Otero family, in their northeast Wichita home on Jan. 15, 1974. The victims included his parents, Joseph and Julie Otero, 38 and 34, and their two children, 11-year-old Josephine. and 9-year-old Joseph II.

The bodies of the victims were found by the family’s three older school-going children.

Rader killed six more people, all women, from 1974 to 1991. He was arrested in Park City on February 26, 2005. It resurfaced in March 2004.

Retiring, he would quietly “disappear off the face of the earth,” as he put it, and would not be heard from again until I saw a story in The Wichita Eagle on the 30th anniversary of his death on January 11, 2004. Otero family murders. Rader said he was “a little bored” now that his children were grown and gone and he couldn’t control himself.

“That really got me excited,” Rader told a psychologist hired to determine whether the man who confessed to 10 murders as Wichita’s serial killer was insane.

In the notes he left behind, Rader called himself BTK, meaning “Bind ’em, torture ’em, kill ’em.”

Today, Rader, 79, is serving 10 consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Institution with no chance of parole until February 2180, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records.

Credit: Wichita Eagle archives