SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – A Springfield woman who helped orchestrate a home invasion killing has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The Springfield News-Leader reports 27-year-old Kearstain Sleeth was sentenced Friday for second-degree murder in the in the 2014 killing of 31-year-old Curtis Payne.

Prosecutors argued three of Sleeth’s friends killed Payne after she told them he had sexually assaulted her.

She drove the boys to Payne’s house but stayed outside while the three teenagers broke into the house. Two of the teenagers have pleaded guilty in Payne’s death, while the third is scheduled for trial later.

During a trial in January, Sleeth’s attorney argued that she didn’t know her friends were going to kill Payne.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The designer of a waterslide where a 10-year-old Kansas boy was decapitated has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the boy’s death.

John Schooley, who designed the Verruckt slide for the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, made his first court appearance Friday in the 2016 death of Caleb Schwab. Schooley remains jailed in Wyandotte County after being brought to Kansas from Texas Friday.

District Judge Roger Burns declined to lower Schooley’s bond from $500,000 to $250,000 and ordered Schooley to surrender his passport.

Schooley’s attorney, Justin Johnston, declined comment after the brief hearing.

Jeff Henry, co-owner of Texas-based Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, pleaded not guilty last week to second-degree murder in Caleb’s death.

A trial date for Henry and Schooley has been tentatively set for Sept. 10.

LINWOOD, Kan. (AP) — A retired Kansas Bureau of Investigation special agent says he believes a teenager who disappeared nearly 30 years ago died after driving into a creek.

Timothy Dennis spent more than a decade investigating the disappearance of Randy Leach. The 17-year-old went missing in April 1988 after borrowing his mother’s car and attending a party near his home in the town of Linwood.

His parents have sued to see some of the investigative records in the case, but a judge denied their request. Dennis, speaking publicly about the case for the first time, says the most reasonable explanation is that the teen’s car went off a single-lane bridge. The creek was searched, but Dennis fears the car was swept too far downstream to be found.

DOUGLAS COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating suspects on hunting violations.

Just after 10 p.m. Saturday, a Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy stopped to assist occupants of a car parked on the side of the road with hazard lights on, according to a social media report from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Blood was found dripping from the trunk. The deputy call the Kansas Game Warden and further investigation found two deer in the trunk of the car, and a loaded .22 caliber rifle and spotlight in the passenger compartment.

Deputies booked five adult occupants of the car into the Douglas County jail for multiple pending charges related to poaching the two deer. Authorities did not release names of the suspects.

Wardens investigated a similar case in Douglas County last month.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Federal prosecutors say a man who led a $1 million methamphetamine ring in southwest Missouri has been convicted.

Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Ryan Nevatt, of Springfield was convicted Friday of seven charges related to the meth operation, which brought the drug from Mexico to the Springfield area.

Federal prosecutors say Nevatt and his co-conspirators regularly traveled to Texas to pick up pounds of meth from a Mexican cartel source.

The release said Nevatt was arrested after Springfield police stopped him with almost $67,000 in the saddlebag of his motorcycle and then later seized more than $97,000 cash from a hotel room rented in his name.

Nevatt was one of 15 people indicted in the conspiracy

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Attorneys defending Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens against an invasion-of-privacy charge are raising doubts about the testimony of a woman with whom he had an affair.

In a court filing dated Sunday, Greitens’ attorneys say the woman testified she never saw Greitens with a camera or phone on the day he is accused of taking a partially nude photo of her while she was blindfolded and bound.

The court filing says the woman also testified during her Friday deposition that she doesn’t know if her belief that he had a phone was the result of a dream.

The court filing says the woman also revealed that she had sent partially nude images of herself to Greitens in June 2015 – three months after the encounter for which Greitens is charged.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN & JIM MCLEAN

Lawmakers may not know for months whether a deal to pump half a billion dollars into schools goes far enough to end seven years of court battles over whether the state shortchanges Kansas children.

If it falls short, the Kansas Supreme Court could call them back to Topeka this summer with yet another ultimatum to send even more money to local districts.

The deal to increase public education funding squeaked through with the bare minimum of votes amid desperate Statehouse gamesmanship over the weekend.

It will boost state aid to schools over the next five years, eventually adding more than half a billion dollars in annual funding.

In coming weeks, state lawyers will prepare briefs to the Kansas Supreme Court arguing this money is enough. Lawmakers, meanwhile, will wrangle over collecting online sales taxes to help cover the cost.

“We must keep our schools open,” Gov. Jeff Colyer told reporters at 12:30 a.m. Sunday after a 16-hour legislative day. “We must have a good response to the Supreme Court. … I believe that this bill — while it’s had a robust debate — has actually achieved those things.”

The night included a high-stakes game of legislative chicken between the House and conservatives in the Senate — all amid a backdrop of hundreds of teachers clad in red shirts who packed the galleries and hallways in a show of support for education funding.

“I look at this as an investment in our future,” said Karen Wilkerson, who teaches in the southwest Kansas town of Ulysses. “You invest in assets all the time for your business.”

Senate leaders wanted to add half as much money to schools as the House did. They fought the House’s plan to the bitter end, filibustering all the way through a midnight deadline that would kill the school finance bill and every single other piece of unfinished business from the 2018 legislative session.

“I could go on and on,” Republican Sen. Rick Wilborn said as he decried government spending with four minutes remaining on the clock. “As a matter of fact, I think I will.”

Just seconds before midnight, frustrated House members on the other side of the building took a procedural vote to keep the clock from running out on the session. But because of how that extraordinary action toyed with legislative rules, it will complicate things in the days ahead. It gives Colyer the ability to veto bills without risk of legislative override.

“We were 90 seconds from melting down the entire session,” House Democratic leader Jim Ward said. “The Senate is a very dysfunctional body right now.”

Earlier in the day, the school finance bill had seemed on an easier path to victory. Colyer had endorsed it and Attorney General Derek Schmidt had admonished lawmakers to finish fast amid a looming court deadline.

“Each day of delay,” he wrote to them, “further damages the State’s ability to prepare a proper defense.”

House Speaker Ron Ryckman and Senate Republican leader Jim Denning held closed-door talks. The House passed a compromise bill making minor concessions to the Senate’s own school funding plan. Proponents crossed their fingers as the bill headed to the Senate.

“I’m holding my breath,” said Rep. Melissa Rooker, who helped craft the legislation, “and hoping they live up to their end of the bargain.”

But optimism faded when the Senate launched into a tax debate that led to hours upon hours of discussion on amendments and parliamentary procedure.

Even after winning enough votes for that bill — which contained tax breaks that could cost the state treasury nearly $500 million over five years — Senate leaders stalled.

“I’m here standing for all my constituents,” Senate President Susan Wagle said. “My teachers, my administrators, my aircraft workers, my CPAs, my health care workers, my hotel workers, the maids. Everybody. I’m here for my whole district. I’m just not here for all the phone calls that have come in today from the teachers.”

In October, the Kansas Supreme Court found the state wasn’t meeting its obligation to suitably fund education. It pointed, in part, to the quarter of public school students lagging behind grade level in math and reading.

Dozens of school boards have helped foot legal bills for the seven-year lawsuit. Two of the state’s largest, highest-poverty districts are among its formal plaintiffs — Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas.

Their lawyers have argued the state should put at least $600 million into schools. Lawmakers opted to add less. They also phased the money over five years. That means they could face further challenges that inflation over that period will undermine the plan’s effect.

Meanwhile, groups such as the Kansas Chamber that think the courts have long overstepped their authority by meddling in school funding levels, will likely continue lobbying for a constitutional amendment to change that.

A proposal to do so passed the House judiciary committee earlier in the week.

House Democrat Pam Curtis, a member of that committee, said if lawmakers face another court order to increase school funding this summer, they could return to Topeka more eager to alter the constitution.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to see something like that give that momentum,” she said. “Because I don’t think then it’s considered in a very thoughtful manner.”

See how the House and Senate voted on the school finance bill.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ. 

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.