Wichita woman, who worked at adult entertainment club, found guilty of murdering co-worker

An adult entertainment club dancer has been found guilty in a 2020 killing of a co-worker in the parking lot of the north Wichita club where they worked.

On Friday, after roughly three hours of deliberating, the jury found 33-year-old Autumn Shanequa Metcalf guilty of solicitation of first-degree murder and first-degree murder in the Aug. 24, 2020, shooting of 33-year-old Joe “JoJo” Glennis Wheeler III of Wichita at Baby Dolls, in the 4900 block of North Arkansas. The club bills itself as a bikini bar.

The trial started Monday before the decision went to the jury around 11 a.m. on Friday. The jury came back with a decision just after 2 p.m.

A person who called 911 about the shooting at 9:06 p.m. on Aug. 2020, said the suspect was “Autumn,” according to an arrest affidavit. The court document says police spoke with her at the scene of the shooting but she was allowed to leave.

Metcalf, of Wichita, wasn’t arrested until September 2022, the same month that the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office highlighted Metcalf as its “felon of the day.”

A night manager found Wheeler dead in his Jaguar car with the door open. He had been shot twice in the head.

Wheeler was the club owner’s son, according to arrest affidavit.

Here is what the arrest affidavit says:

Wheeler had worked the day shift and hung out after his shift. Multiple employees heard him get into an argument with Metcalf. One person said the argument lasted more than two hours.

The night manager heard Metcalf say “just wait, (I’m gonna) have somebody come up here … my brother has a strap.”

She made multiple calls, at one point telling the person she wanted Wheeler gone. Another person interviewed a club patron who heard Metcalf say “I’ll have him killed,’” or ‘I’ll have him shot.”

Later, two people arrived and met Metcalf at the club.

Based on video surveillance, the three of them were the only ones to “leave the bar or enter the property” between the time the night manager was with Wheeler and when she found him “killed less than two minutes later.”

The three were “contacted during the investigation and declined to provide a statement.”