GREELEY, Colo. — An Arkansas man was sentenced to 35 years behind bars in Colorado for killing a woman in Weld County, putting her body in a suitcase and dumping it in Arkansas in 2017.
David Houston-Harvey, 26, was sentenced to 35 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections on Wednesday.
He is accused of fatally shooting 23-year-old Laramie Cline from Ozark, Alabama in August 2017. At the time of the murder, they were traveling through Weld County from Wyoming to Denver on Interstate 25, according to the Weld County District Attorney’s Office.
Houston-Harvey told investigators that Cline wanted to stay in Colorado, but he wanted to return to Arkansas or Alabama. Initially, he told investigators she pointed her gun at him and he grabbed the gun, causing it to discharge and kill her. However, he later told his girlfriend that he had shot Cline when she was asleep, put her body in his suitcase and drove her car back to Arkansas, where he dumped her body, according to the Weld County District Attorney’s Office.
In May 2019, a Weld Grand jury indicted Houston-Harvey on four felony charges: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, robbery and aggravated motor vehicle theft.
As part of a plea agreement, Houston-Harvey pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in June 2020 in Weld District Court.
He is currently serving a 12-year sentence in the Arkansas Department of Corrections for dumping Cline's body.
He was sentenced to 35 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, followed by five years of mandatory parole, on Wednesday. His Colorado sentence will run concurrent to his Arkansas sentence.
