Great Bend Man Sentenced In The Death Of A Garden City Teen

A Great Bend man was sentenced to five
years in prison in the death of a girl he injected with morphine
last July.
Thirty-one-year-old Joseph Jeffrey Rykiel was sentenced Monday
for the death of 15-year-old Jessica Shearer of Garden City.
Rykiel entered an Alford plea in February to involuntary
manslaughter.
The Garden City Telegram reports that
Shearer was reported missing from the Barton County Youth Care Home
three days before her death. She was found dead last July 4th in a
basement room Rykiel was renting in Great Bend.
Barton County Attorney Doug Matthews says Rykiel used a morphine
prescription for one of the home’s occupants to inject Shearer at
least twice. She died from an overdose.