Inset: Carter Joshua Curtis (Bates County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The area near where Curtis shot and killed his father in Adrian, Mo. (Google Maps).
A tragic turn of events has led to a Missouri man’s lengthy prison sentence after he fatally shot his father, an act he claimed was necessary. Carter Joshua Curtis, aged 20, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after admitting guilt to second-degree murder charges for the death of his father, 41-year-old John McMurphy.
The sentence was handed down by Judge M. Brandon Baker in the 27th Judicial Circuit Court, following Curtis’s guilty plea. Curtis will receive credit for the 613 days he has already spent in custody prior to the trial.
The incident took place on September 28, 2024, in Adrian, Missouri, a small town located approximately 55 miles south of Kansas City. On that fateful night, Curtis made a distressing call to 911 at 11:23 p.m., confessing to having shot his father.
According to the Adrian Police Department’s probable cause statement, law enforcement officials from various agencies responded swiftly to the scene following the emergency call.
Upon arrival, an officer noted in the charging document that they encountered two visibly distressed women in the driveway of the residence. Their emotional state underscored the gravity of the situation that unfolded that night.
“I arrived on scene,” an officer wrote in the charging document. “I met two white females in the driveway that were hysterical.”
There was also a juvenile present outside, the officer wrote. The document is heavily redacted but notes that someone shouted as police began to survey the scene: “He has never been violent.”
Inside, the officer described seeing the victim visible from the entryway. The older man was found dead with a clear “gunshot wound to the head,” lying face down on the kitchen floor, police said.
The weapon was a Mossberg Patriot .308 caliber, a bolt-action rifle typically used for long-distance shooting.
“[T]here was a spent shell casing still in the chamber upon recovering the rifle,” the probable cause statement reads. “There was a magazine in the rifle that did not have additional bullets in it.”
Minutes later, the defendant was found and arrested one block away from the scene of the crime, according to law enforcement.
The victim’s wife told police she woke up to the sound of a gunshot, according to the probable cause statement. After that, she said she walked into the hallway where Curtis was standing with the rifle, which he handed over to her. Then, she said, he just walked down the stairs.
“I already called 911 and I had to do it,” the killer allegedly told the victim’s wife as he walked away.
Eventually, she went downstairs herself. There, she described finding her husband, “face down in the dining room by the table.”
The defendant was originally charged with one count each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, but those charges were reduced and dismissed, respectively, under the terms of his plea deal.
