Jurors hand down guilty verdict for fatal beating of homeless man on Wichita bridge
A Sedgwick County jury on Thursday convicted a 34-year-old man of second-degree intentional murder and possessing methamphetamine in the beating death of a homeless man on the Seneca Street Bridge in 2022.
Abel Molina is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 6. He faces 12 1/4 years to more than 54 years in prison for the murder, depending on his prior criminal history. His co-defendant David Chandler is serving a 17-year, 10-month sentence after he was convicted of second-degree intentional murder .
Court records say Chandler and Molina, both homeless men, beat 30-year-old Blake Barnes in the head with metal pipes or bars after they found him rummaging through Chandler's tent and allegedly stealing a walking stick on Feb. 22, 2022. The men, who were camping under the Seneca Street Bridge at the time, reportedly beat Barnes in retaliation as motorists looked on, then left him to die on the bridge, in the 600 block of North Seneca, near McLean.
Prosecutor Mandee Schauf said Thursday that Barnes' injuries included skull fractures. He died within hours of bystanders calling 911.
"This wasn't one hit that killed Blake Barnes. It was ... multiple repeated strikes to the head," she said.
Molina, who represented himself at his trial this week, told jurors he wasn't responsible for Barnes' killing and instead painted himself as a "Good Samaritan" who tried to stop the attack. He said when he realized he couldn't, he left the scene and didn't know police suspected him until later when he was questioned after being arrested on unrelated warrants.
Molina told jurors he initially lied to police about being there for the murder because he was "scared" and not in his "right mind." He blamed the killing on Chandler, saying if he had helped there would have been bruising on his hands, and pleaded with the jury to acquit him.
But Schauf pointed jurors back to evidence and eyewitnesses that placed Molina at the scene, including police finding the victim's blood on him and a description of his clothing that matched one of the attackers. She asked jurors to consider whether Molina's account of what happened that night made sense and asked why he didn't immediately tell law enforcement he had tried to stop the murder.
She asked jurors to find him guilty as charged, even though one of the suspected murder weapons was missing.
The jury deliberated for more than three hours before handing down the guilty verdicts.
Molina's trial started on Monday. Sedgwick County District Judge Jeffrey Goering presided.
Homeless man sentenced in deadly beating on Seneca Street Bridge in Wichita
