On April 12, 2019, a visit to a friend's house in south Wichita, Kansas, turned tragic for 21-year-old Justin Lane, a White/Caucasian male from Grain Valley, Missouri. Inside the residence at 815 S. Emporia, what began as a gathering of friends devolved into a fatal altercation. Lane was with his best friend, Brandon Craig, also 21, when a fight broke out between them.
The dispute culminated in Lane suffering a single gunshot wound to the head.
The investigation into Lane's death was complicated by the conflicting accounts provided by Brandon Craig, who was from Independence, Missouri. Initially, Craig denied having a gun. He then altered his story, claiming the firearm discharged accidentally as Lane was trying to take it from him. In yet another version of events, he admitted to accidentally shooting Lane but maintained that Lane was not touching the gun when it went off. However, investigators determined the gun had safety mechanisms that made these scenarios unlikely. A potential motive emerged when Craig informed police that Lane had been intimate with the mother of his child.
Ultimately, Brandon Craig was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in connection with Lane's death. In April 2022, Craig pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated battery. He was subsequently sentenced to 74 months, which is six years and two months, in prison for the fatal shooting of his best friend.
