A 2020 case involving a Linn County man charged in the murder of his mother, a woman from Garnett has been settled with only a misdemeanor plea agreement. Forty four year-old James “Rocky” Allen was arrested for killing his mother, 70 year-old Charlotte Grimes of Garnett, on December 15th, 2020, by ramming his truck into her vehicle several times on a section of Keitel Road east of Parker. But after two years of investigation, hearings, changes in defense attorneys and subpoenas of witnesses for a preliminary hearing scheduled for January 18, state prosecutors in late November revised Allen’s charges to leaving the scene of an accident – a misdemeanor. Allen’s defense attorney presented testimony in a November bond reduction hearing that reversed a number of findings in an initial Kansas Highway Patrol investigation report.
