Benton teen pleads guilty to murder charge

A teen has entered a guilty plea in the 2020 murder of an Advance, Missouri, man.

According to Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver, on Monday, Evan Schrader of Benton, Missouri, entered a guilty plea to the charges of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery related to the Jan. 28, 2020, homicide of Robert Harwood in Advance. The case was on a change of venue to Cape Girardeau County.

Oliver said there was no agreement between the state and the defendant as to sentencing. The full range of punishment will be available to Cape Girardeau County Judge Scott Lipke when the defendant is sentenced May 2. Schrader faces up to a life sentence for each of the charges.

According to Stoddard County Sheriff Carl Hefner, at the time of the incident, officers received a call to a residential alarm at 4:27 a.m. Jan. 28, 2020, at a home in the 600 block of Duckett Street. When the officers arrived, they found Harwood, 61, dead on the floor of the living room.

Schrader, who was 15 at the time of the murder, was arrested Jan. 28 and placed in the Stoddard County Juvenile Detention Center. On April 17, 2020, Schrader was certified as an adult.

There are two other co-defendants charged in the homicide of Harwood. One of those co-defendants, Joshua Herron, 43, is scheduled for jury trial April 26 to 28 before Lipke in Cape Girardeau County.