Kansas Supreme Court Upholds Torture Murder Convictions

The Kansas Supreme Court upheld most of the convictions against a Wichita woman for torturing and killing a man in a crime that the trial judge called “horrific beyond imagination.”

Heidi Hillard and her husband, Jeff, were convicted of participating in the November 2016 killing of 33-year-old Scottie Goodpaster Jr. of Wichita.

Both were sentenced in 2018 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years.

Prosecutors say Goodpaster and a woman were kidnapped because of $185 in missing drug money.

Goodpaster was attacked at a home in Valley Center with an ax, knife, and staple gun, and suffered genital injuries.

His body was found hanging from a tree six days later.

The court affirmed Heidi Hillard’s convictions and sentences for premeditated first-degree murder, felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery, and rape.

It overturned her conviction for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance after concluding the state presented insufficient evidence to support that charge.