GREAT BEND – A 54-year-old Florida man on Monday pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder and one count of theft in Barton County District Court in connection with the July 2018 deaths of Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter, both of Wichita. They were vendors at the Barton County Fair.

According to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt Michael Fowler, Jr., of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty to the three counts and District Judge Mike Keeley accepted the pleas. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

As part of the plea agreement, Schmidt agreed to dismiss the count of capital murder in the case.

The victim’s bodies were discovered in July in shallow graves near Van Buren, Arkansas. Prosecutors say the Carpenters were killed at the Barton County Fair.  Fowler and the other suspects worked for the carnival company at the fair.

The case was investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Great Bend Police Department in Kansas, as well as the Van Buren Police Department and Crawford County Sherriff’s Office in Arkansas. Deputy Attorney General Vic Braden, Assistant Attorney General Jessica Domme and Assistant Attorney General Lyndzie Carter of Schmidt’s office are prosecuting the case.

Related charges against four other defendants remain pending.