Viola News

A Sedgwick County couple's dream home burns to the ground. The fire started Wednesday afternoon in south west Sedgwick County near Lake Afton.

A man is in critical condition after an accident in Sedgwick County, near Viola.

A man is in critical condition after an accident in Sedgwick County, near Viola.

Robert Abner, along with his public defender Lacy Gilmour, listens to Judge David Kaufman during his sentencing Friday.

A man is in critical condition after an accident in Sedgwick County, near Viola.

The county puts a pipe in a pond and buys a pump -- and saves some Sedgwick County residents hundreds of dollars.

Robyn Pauly and Charles Marshall announce their engagement and coming wedding. The bride-to-be is from Lenexa, Kan., and the daughter of Alan and Connie Pauly of Viola, Kan., and granddaughter of John and Zelma Pauly of Conway Springs, Kan.

Sedgwick County jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding Robert Abner guilty of six counts of rape, two counts of aggravated sodomy, aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping.

"She was on a mission" Last year, a man named Robert Abner kidnapped a convenience-store clerk near Viola, Kan., and sexually assaulted her over the course of four days -- until, moved by her family's pleas on TV, he released her.

Robert Abner is taken out of the courtroom after he was found guilty on all 10 counts for robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Joyce Patterson last summer.

A jury will soon decide the fate of Robert Abner. Abner is accused of kidnapping a Viola convenience store clerk from where she worked last summer.

WICHITA a ' The trial has started for a man accused of holding a Wichita-area convenience store clerk captive for three days while he raped and sodomized her.

Robert Abner sits in Judge David Kaufman's courtroom during the second day of his trial in Sedgwick County District Court.

It is an unusual case that drew wide media attention: In June 2008, according to authorities and testimony at a preliminary hearing, an armed robber abducted Joyce Patterson, then 48, from the Viola convenience store where she worked as a clerk.