Lenexa Man Gets 65 Years for Killing Mother, Aunt Day After Eviction Notice

A Johnson County judge sentenced Luke Howard to 65 years and 3 months in prison Monday for killing his mother and aunt inside their Lenexa home last year, capping a case that began with a frantic welfare-check call and ended with Howard turning himself in at a Missouri pharmacy covered in blood. Howard pleaded guilty in May 2026 to two counts of intentional second-degree murder in the deaths of 63-year-old Valerie Howard, his mother, and 71-year-old Joyce Austin, his aunt.

According to FOX4KC, Lenexa police officers responded to a welfare check around 5 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2025, on West 90th Street west of Lackman Road and found both women dead inside. Howard was originally charged with two counts of first-degree murder, but as reported by Johnson County Post, the case was resolved through a negotiated plea to second-degree murder.

The station's report indicates that Austin's son had contacted police that morning requesting a welfare check on his mother and explicitly warned officers that Howard possessed firearms, a detail also noted by Law & Crime. Court documents cited by FOX4KC describe how Howard fled the home with blood on his clothes and drove roughly 30 miles across state lines to a Walgreens in Liberty, Missouri, where he told pharmacists he had killed his mother and aunt. The pharmacists called police, and Howard turned himself in the same day, informing officers the murder weapon was in his vehicle outside, per the same account.

Warning Signs in the Days Before the Killings

Police had already been to the home twice in the 48 hours before the shootings. On Feb. 10, 2025, Valerie Howard told officers her son came into her bedroom and pushed her, while Howard claimed his mother had grabbed him by the neck and pushed him, according to the police report referenced by FOX4KC. That same day, Austin asked Howard to leave her house, said his behavior was scaring her, told officers he had threatened her, and said she suspected he had guns. Austin also told officers Howard suffered from bipolar disorder, and Valerie Howard told authorities he had been violent toward her back in 2021, a period when the two women reportedly locked themselves in their rooms as much as possible.

On Feb. 11, Howard called Lenexa police claiming a woman in the house had pointed a gun at him, then rescinded that statement. Officers who responded that day found no firearms in the home, and Howard denied having any weapons. Representatives of Johnson County Mental Health had also evaluated the home in the days before the killings and reported finding no firearms after Howard made the same claim, according to court affidavits reported by The Mirror. Austin was the person who issued Howard a 30-day eviction notice around this time, and Howard later told investigators he killed Austin because she had evicted him from the house.

A Home Owned by One of the Victims

The Lenexa residence in the 15400 block of West 90th Street was owned by Austin, who lived there with her former sister-in-law, Valerie Howard, according to the Johnson County Post. A 911 caller reported that the victims had been shot, according to Crime Solvers Central.

Howard entered his guilty pleas in Johnson County District Court on May 13, 2026, formally admitting to two counts of intentional second-degree murder, the outlet reported. Under Kansas Statute § 21-5403, intentional second-degree murder is classified as a severity level 1 person felony, according to the Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. The sentences totaled 783 months, or 65 years and 3 months.

Part of a Wider Regional Pattern

The case lands amid a documented rise in domestic and intra-family violence across the Kansas City metro area. Domestic violence homicides in the region climbed sharply in 2025, with local police reporting 18 domestic violence-related killings by August of that year compared to 12 during all of 2024, according to KMBC. The broader pattern includes killings involving intimate partners and family members, as well as gun-violence deaths.

A Johnson County judge handed down Howard's sentence on Monday, closing out a case that began with two police visits, a mental health evaluation, and an eviction notice, none of which prevented the killings that followed within days.