Woman sentenced to 12 years in prison for murder in downtown Shawnee

A Johnson County judge has sentenced a 19-year-old Gardner woman to more than 12 years in prison for her role in a fatal shooting in downtown Shawnee.

On Monday, Judge Christina Dunn Gyllenborg sentenced Kyleigh Guzman for first-degree murder and aggravated robbery in connection with the death of Jarod Rogers in November 2022.

Guzman received 147 months for the murder and 55 months for the aggravated robbery. The sentences are to be served concurrently, according to a news release from the Johnson County District Attorney's Office.

Guzman, then 17, was one of five teenagers accused of shooting Rogers on Nov. 30, 2022, during a drug deal in downtown Shawnee that prosecutors said turned violent.

Rogers was killed in a parking lot

According to court documents, Guzman and four other people, all 17 or 18 years old, arranged to meet Rogers the week after Thanksgiving 2022 to buy marijuana and rob him.

Rogers was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a parking lot behind a row of businesses in the 11,000 block of Johnson Drive in downtown Shawnee.

He was taken to Overland Park Regional Medical Center in critical condition, where he died two days later.

A suspect is still awaiting trial

Fernando Gonzalez-Prado, now 19, is awaiting a jury trial, currently scheduled for January 2025.

He is charged with first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated robbery. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

In March, another suspect, 19-year-old Fernando Reyes-Lara, was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison for second-degree premeditated murder and two counts of aggravated robbery.

Roger Hernandez, 19, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in June for second-degree murder and aggravated robbery.

A charge of first-degree murder against 19-year-old Sabrina Clark was dropped in favor of two counts of aggravated robbery as part of a plea agreement. She is currently serving a sentence at the Johnson County Juvenile Detention Center until she turns 22 1/2 years old, court records show.

Rogers' mother spoke at previous hearing

During the sentencing for Reyes-Lara, Jolene Blohm, Rogers' mother, spoke about how much Rogers meant to his family and how senseless his killing was.

“Did (the suspects) think they were tough and cool?” she said at the time. “Is it cool to murder someone in broad daylight, push them out of the driver's seat of their vehicle and leave them dead on the ground, alone in an empty parking lot?”

Blohm added: “Now his little brother will no longer have Jarod as a witness. His little sister will grow up without her oldest brother to protect her. His future nieces and nephews will never know him. My son was by no means perfect, but he did not deserve to die.”

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