Man pleads innocent due to mental disease in friend's shooting

PLATTE CITY, Mo. -- A man accused of shooting a friend to death and raping the victim's wife has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Jacob E. McGinnis, 25, entered the pleas Thursday in Platte County Circuit Court to one count each of first-degree murder, forcible rape and first-degree burglary and two of armed criminal action.

McGinnis will be evaluated by the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

Court documents said officers went to a home in Platte City on Sept. 10, after someone called 911 and hung up. A woman there said McGinnis, whom she described as her husband's best friend, held a shotgun on her and raped her.

A few hours later the body of her husband was found along a road near Kansas City International Airport. He had been shot three times.