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Muncie man pleads guilty to robbery, gets 15-year prison sentence

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A Muncie, Ind., man who admitted to a robbery that led to a serious injury was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 15 years in prison.

As part of a plea bargain, charges of murder, auto theft and carrying a handgun without a license against Martize Kirkland were dropped, court records show. Kirkland was 27 when arrested in 2015.

On June 12, 2015, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was called to a home near Binford Boulevard to investigate the report of a decomposing body. Police exhumed the mummified remains and later identified them as belonging to Jeremy Johnson, 23, of Muncie. The crime lab found a bullet near the head of the body.

According to police, Johnson had been reported missing by his grandmother in October 2014.

During interviews of known associates of Johnson’s, police learned that Kirkland bragged to friends that he “took care of Jeremy, we don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Witnesses said that Kirkland took Johnson to Indianapolis in Johnson’s vehicle on Oct. 15, 2015, using the purchase and then the subsequent use of heroin as a lure.

Court documents said that Kirkland then shot Johnson in the back of the head.

Kirkland then gave Johnson’s vehicle to a known associate, who stowed it in his girlfriend’s garage.

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