Wichita man sentenced for deadly shooting over missing pain pills & a $40 drug debt

A Wichita man has been ordered to serve just over nine years in prison for fatally shooting another man in Haysville in 2022.

Jim Sanchez, 29, pleaded no contest in May to second-degree reckless murder and aggravated robbery in the Feb. 10, 2022, shooting death of 23-year-old Vennie K. Kongvongsay of Wichita . Sedgwick County District Judge David Kaufman sentenced him to 109 months on Monday, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

Sanchez’s lawyer had asked the judge to let his client go with a sentence of time served, saying in a written motion that Sanchez had accepted responsibility and saved the state money by entering a plea, had no prior criminal history and has a young child to care for.

“In Jim’s case, there are substantial and compelling mitigating circumstances which warrant a downward durational departure to time considered served,” the lawyer, James Pratt, wrote.

Sanchez has been in the Sedgwick County Jail for more than two years since his March 23, 2022 arrest.

Authorities have said Kongvongsay was shot during a confrontation where Sanchez and another man, Justin Lee Welch, accused him of stealing pain pills belonging to Welch’s uncle. Kongvongsay was apparently a home health care worker who had been working for the uncle for about a month when the pills vanished, an affidavit released by the court states.

Welch and Sanchez also accused Kongvongsay of failing to repay a $40 drug debt. In a fit of anger, the men drove Kongvongsay to 86th Street South and Broadway, questioned him about the missing medication and stole his cellphone at gunpoint before shooting him , court records say.

Initially, Welch and Sanchez blamed each other for the killing, but a factual basis included in Sanchez’s plea agreement says he fired the fatal shots. The factual basis cites a law enforcement interview where Welch provided details of Kongvongsay’s death, including telling authorities that Sanchez shot “one or two rounds from a handgun” at the victim “as they drove by” him.

A homeowner in the area found Kongvongsay’s body in their backyard shortly after 1 p.m. on Feb. 10, 2022, about 10 hours after the shooting.

Welch is serving a 10-year, three-month prison sentence for second-degree murder and aggravated robbery. The 27-year-old was sentenced in May.

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