22 years ordered
for Canada murder
Stepbrother sentenced for desecration of body
Staff writer
A Marion man who pleaded no contest April 18 to voluntary manslaughter and aggravated battery was sentenced Monday to more than 22 years in prison.
Ruling the circumstances aggravated, judge Mark Braun handed Robert B. Mans, 50, consecutive sentences of 228 months in prison for voluntary manslaughter and 43 months for aggravated battery.
Braun ordered Mans to register as a violent offender and pay $8,962.25. Of that, $3,224.25 is restitution to the crime victims compensation board.
The sentences stemmed from the April 8, 2020, murder of Wichita resident Shalan Niccole Gannon, 27. Gannon was reported missing three days later and her body was found in the Ninnescah River in rural Sumner County two months after that.
Five days after Gannon’s body was found, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents searched the property of Mans’ stepfather Michael and stepbrother Jason at 1941 Narrow Rd. in Canada. Agents found what appeared to be blood stains and a clump of human hair.
Stepbrother sentenced
Mans’ stepbrother Jason Kirkby, 39, pleaded guilty Monday to desecration of a body and was sentenced to 12 months’ supervised probation.
Originally charged with obstruction of apprehension, interference with law enforcement, and desecration, Kirkby and his father agreed in August to testify against Mans at trial in return for the obstruction and interference charges being dismissed.
Michael Kirkby made the same plea agreement as Jason Kirkby but died in December.