On March 27, 2018, the Springfield Police Department responded to a call regarding a deceased individual located in a residential area of Springfield, Missouri. Officers were dispatched to the 1000 block of West Florida Street shortly after noon, where they discovered the body of 30-year-old Lance E. Loveless inside an abandoned vehicle parked in the backyard of a home.
Initial observations indicated that the male victim had sustained a fatal gunshot wound, and an autopsy was subsequently ordered to confirm the cause of death. Investigators began processing the scene, treating the case as a homicide as they sought to piece together the events that led to the discovery.
As detectives delved into the investigation, a pattern of violence emerged in the area. Just five days after Loveless was found, another man, Robert Hewitt, was discovered shot to death in his car in a separate incident. Law enforcement officials were able to link the two crimes, eventually identifying a suspect named Willie Haughton. Authorities determined that Haughton had met Loveless recently and had killed him with the primary intention of stealing his firearm. Prosecutors later revealed that Haughton used the weapon stolen from Loveless to kill Hewitt less than a week later, allegedly because he felt the second victim had disrespected a friend.
Haughton was not immediately apprehended at the scene of either crime, prompting a manhunt that lasted several days. Police utilized GPS tracking data to locate him, as he was already on bond for an unrelated case involving domestic assault and was wearing a monitoring device. He was eventually tracked to a home in Greene County and taken into custody. In December 2019, a jury convicted Haughton of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of both Loveless and Hewitt, along with additional charges including robbery and armed criminal action. In June 2020, the court sentenced him to two consecutive life terms in prison, ensuring he would face a significant penalty for the spree of violence that claimed two lives in such a short span.
