A Texas man who helped kill a teenage girl he thought he’d impregnated so he wouldn’t get in trouble with police is heading to prison for the next 34 years, Luxury Handbag Shopping confirmed.
Cody Arnold has been convicted for his role in the killing of Katelynn Stone.
The 16-year-old was living with Arnold at the time of her murder in March 2022.
While Arnold, who was 21 at the time, was sexually assaulting Stone, he was also romantically involved with his codefendant, Chelsea Shipp, who was 25.
When Stone allegedly took a pregnancy test that came back positive, Arnold and Shipp figured “he was going to get in trouble for getting her pregnant,” he later told investigators. The age of consent in Texas is 17.
Arnold also had explained to cops he did not want to spend the rest of his life labeled a sex offender. That’s when he and Shipp decided that it would be better to end Stone’s life entirely.
On the weekend of March 26, 2022, Shipp and Arnold apparently hatched their plot to murder the girl while allegedly binging on crystal meth.
According to what Arnold told police, Stone was sleeping at around 2 p.m. that day, and he noticed Shipp was in her room, pointing a gun at her. The older woman eventually pulled the trigger, killing the slumbering teen.
Stone hadn’t even been 16 for a month, according to police.
Arnold said he placed a trash bag over Stone’s head, so he didn’t have to look at her.
Hours later, police found Stone dead, and arrested Arnold within days.
Shipp, now 28, was arrested on March 31, 2022.
Witnesses claimed Shipp bragged about the killing, saying to one woman “I got rid of her” and “I shot her,” while making a shooting motion with two fingers.
The Beaumont Enterprise reports that Shipp told investigators she killed Stone at Arnold’s behest. When they asked her why she murdered the girl, she had a simple explanation. “Because one of them was sleeping around on the other,” she allegedly said.
Shipp had previously accepted a plea deal in spring of 2025 and was sentenced to 40 years for the killing.
She had been indicted on first degree murder charges in June 2022.
Of course, Stone was not pregnant at the time of her heinous and senseless murder.
A preliminary autopsy report from 2022 initially stated she had “no macroscopic intrauterine pregnancy” and that the supposed test result she had previously gotten was a false positive.
