A 50-year-old Wichita man has been sentenced to prison after using online obituaries to plan home burglaries that apparently occurred between July and November 2023.
Gary Steven Garrett was sentenced Thursday to 16 1/2 years, with 120 months in prison and 78 months in the Sedgwick County Jail, Dan Dillon, spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, said Thursday.
Of the original 27 charges against him, Garrett was convicted of a total of 25, with a judge dismissing two theft charges because they were duplicates.
The charges include three residential burglaries, one attempted residential burglary, one commercial burglary and multiple counts of theft, forgery and identity theft, according to an August news release from the district attorney’s office.
Victims reported losing financial documents, weapons and electronics in the home burglaries, some of which occurred while the families were at funeral services for their deceased relatives.
A Wichita police detective testified that Garrett’s phone showed online searches for obituaries that matched burglary locations in the city from July to November 2023.
“Garrett was also convicted of using fake IDs to rent and purchase multiple vehicles during the same period,” the news release said. “One of the vehicles Garrett rented had a GPS location device that placed the vehicle at the scene of several burglaries, according to testimony in the trial.”
More than 40 witnesses testified during Garrett’s six-day jury trial in August. Garrett has a lengthy criminal history, with crimes similar to those he was found guilty of earlier this year.
Garrett has 22 prior convictions in Kansas, including 17 in Sedgwick County, according to data from the Kansas Department of Corrections. The convictions range from 1994 to 2011 and include aggravated indecent liberties with a child, arson, six counts of making a forgery, six counts of forgery, five counts of theft and two counts of identity theft, the Eagle reported.
He has 51 disciplinary reports from his time in prison, 17 of which were for contraband, KDOC records show. He was last released from prison in 2012.
A Wichita man searched online for obituaries and robbed homes during the funeral. He is guilty of 27 charges
