Attorney General's News Release

July 29, 1999

Former Warsaw city prosecutor sentenced to 13 years on count of conspiracy to commit murder

Lexington, Mo. — The former city prosector of Warsaw, Martin D. McLaughlin, was sentenced yesterday to 13 years imprisonment on one count of conspiracy to commit murder and to 3 years imprisonment on one count of unlawful use of a weapon. The sentences will be served concurrently.

Attorney General Jay Nixon and Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney W. Page Bellamy brought charges against McLaughlin in December for paying approximately $4,300 to an undercover highway patrol trooper to kill his brother, Carl McLaughlin, and his former wife, Sheila McLaughlin. Nixon and Bellamy said McLaughlin also asked the trooper to rape and sodomize his former wife before killing her and to sexually mutilate his brother after killing him.

McLaughlin is scheduled to be sentenced in Johnson County on Monday on one count of burglary in the first degree and one count of assault in the second degree.

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