WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 63-year-old Wichita man will be sentenced in October after pleading no contest in the stabbing death of his wife.

Larry Andres pleaded no contest to first-degree premeditated murder in the death of Marilyn Andres last month.

The Wichita Eagle reports that a plea agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend Andres receive parole eligibility on a life sentence after 25 rather than 50 years.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in court the agreement was made because Larry Andres called 911 not long after stabbing his wife with a kitchen knife at their home and cooperated with police.

Andres entered the plea Thursday and will be sentenced October 4.

SALINE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a suspect in connection with burglary.

A Salina homeowner reported that someone entered his garage in the 500 Block of South College sometime between 11 a.m. Tuesday at 4 p.m. Thursday, according to Salina Police Captain Mike Sweeney.

A 2016 Chevy Malibu, set of golf clubs and other items valued
at $27,655 were missing.

Soon after the burglary report was taken, the McPherson Police Department located the stolen Chevy Malibu driven Driving the 27-year-old Darrel Shannon of Salina.

He is an acquaintance of Porter.

Police were able to recover all of the stolen property and Shannon was placed under arrest and booked into the Saline County Jail late Thursday evening on requested charges of burglary and felony theft.

DICKINSON COUNTY – Three people were injured in an accident just before 4 p.m. on Friday in Dickinson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Nissan Versa driven by Bridgette Marie Warnke, 43, Abilene, was northbound on Kansas 43 one mile south of unincorporated Dickinson County community of Detroit, Kansas.

The vehicle struck a northbound horse drawn trailer

Warnke was transported to Geary County Hospital.

Two pedestrians with the trailer Malachi Leroy Hamilton, 13, and Micah Leroy Hamilton, 15, both of Enterprise, were transported to the hospital in Abilene.

Warnke was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Police say a 26-year-old man has been charged in a fatal crash outside a Kansas City, Kansas, hospital.

The Kansas City Star reports that Anthony Fields is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of 74-year-old Sotera Sebastian, of Kansas City, Kansas.

The crash happened Monday night when the sport utility vehicle that Fields was driving rear-ended another SUV that was stopped while waiting to turn into Providence Medical Center. Police say Fields ran from the scene but was arrested nearby.

Jail records show he also is charged with aggravated assault, aggravated burglary and leaving the scene of an injury accident. Bond for Fields is set at $250,000. It wasn’t immediately known if he had an attorney.

PRATT COUNTY – The Kansas State Fire Marshal is investigating a suspicious fire in Pratt County.

Just after 5:30 a.m. on Friday, Pratt City Fire, Pratt Police Department, and the Pratt County Sheriff’s Office responded to the report of a fire on the east side of Lemon’s Park, according to a media release.

On arrival officers found a pickup completely engulfed in flames.

The vehicle had driven through two fences, coming off Country Club Road just south of the city limits.

The make, model or owner cannot be determined at this time, according to the Sheriff.

There were no injuries

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A new book says the BTK serial killer planned to kill an 11th victim by hanging her upside down in her Wichita, Kansas, home. It’s a story police heard from Dennis Rader himself in 2005, but decided at the time to suppress to protect the woman.

The story was made public in “Confessions of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer,” which has a scheduled release date of Sept. 6. The book was written by professor of forensic psychology Katherine Ramsland.

The author says lust and a desire for fame and power drove Rader to kill 10 people in Wichita from 1974 to 1991.

Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, told the Wichita Eagle her father cooperated on the book because he’s proud of his murders.

SHAWNEE COUNTY – Family and friends have established fundraisers to help the families following Thursday’s fatal accident in Shawnee County.

Four people died in an accident just after 7:15 a.m. on Thursday.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1999 Subaru Impreza driven by Devin Michael Greeve, 17, Topeka, was westbound on U.S. 24, two miles east of Silver Lake.

The vehicle crossed the centerline.

An eastbound 2007 Pontiac Vibe driven by Lance Jason Lenard, 47, Rossville, struck the Subaru on the passenger side.

Greeve and Lenard were transported to Stormont Vail, where they died.

Passengers in the Subaru, Gaby N. Greeve, 11, and Tyler M. Crouse, 14, both of Topeka, were pronounced dead at the scene and transported to the Shawnee County Coroner.  To assist the Greeve family with burial expenses an online fundraiser was started.

A passenger in the Pontiac, Kade Lenard, 13, Rossville, was transported to Stormont Vail.  To help with medical expenses, a GoFundMe page was established to help his mother.

Crouse was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

by ANDY MARSO

Computer giant Hewlett Packard Enterprises has entered into a $215 million contract with the state of Kansas to upgrade a Medicaid computer system that tracks patient claims payments to providers.

According to a recent news release from the California-based company, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, or HPE, will work with partners that include Kansas City-based Cerner Corp. to overhaul the state’s Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) to meet new federal standards.

“HPE will strengthen the state’s ability to manage Medicaid policies and finances across disparate programs and agencies,” the news release said.

Angela de Rocha, a Kansas government spokeswoman, said the state will fund about 20 percent of the project with the federal government picking up the rest.

Kansas officials signed a contract of similar value in 2011 with Accenture to replace the computer system used to determine Medicaid eligibility with an upgrade called the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES.

That system went live last year after significant delays. It has failed to live up to the original promises of processing speed and accuracy , which has contributed to a backlog of thousands of Medicaid applications.

Developers who worked on KEES expressed concerns in emails about the program’s ability to communicate with the state’s current MMIS, which eventually will be replaced by the new HPE software.

The HPE software, known as the Kansas Modular Medicaid System, will take approved applications and enter them into a database of the state’s more than 400,000 Medicaid recipients. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the three private insurance companies that administer Kansas Medicaid, or KanCare, will use it to track and pay Medicaid claims to providers.

In the news release, HPE promises to deliver a product that is more flexible than the current system. It said the new system has the potential to swap out individual portions of the program and update them to interact with other software without taking down the whole system.

“Kansas will have a new information technology foundation for our Medicaid enterprise that will allow us to communicate targeted, actionable information from more sources in near real time to decision-makers,” KDHE secretary Susan Mosier said in a statement included in the news release. “This foundation will support changes over time to meet future program needs. By selecting HPE, we have partnered with an innovative company that understands the unique technological challenges of Medicaid delivery.”

Heartland Health Monitor partner KHI News Service requested information from KDHE about the funding sources for the HPE project. That request is pending.

HPE also said that Cerner, which specializes in electronic medical records software, will ensure the new system can organize Medicaid claims data from multiple sources into a single patient record.

A Cerner program called HealtheEDW will give system users at KDHE quicker access to data related to patient care and health outcomes, assisting the state’s efforts to steer Medicaid patients toward the right treatments at the right time.

Zane Burke, president of Cerner, said partnering with HPE on the upgrade will create an “unprecedented opportunity” to improve the delivery of health care services through KanCare.

“Historically, states collected analysis based on retroactive claims data,” Burke said in the news release. “Working with HPE, Kansas’ Medicaid program will be able to produce intelligence based on claims plus clinical and financial information in near-real time.”

Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso