Prosecutors said Cody Arnold helped kill 16-year-old Katelynn Stone and hide her body after he and Chelsea Shipp feared Stone was pregnant.
BEAUMONT, Texas — A Jefferson County jury has sentenced Cody Arnold to 34 years in prison after convicting him in the 2022 killing of 16-year-old Katelynn Stone, a case prosecutors said began with fear that Arnold could face trouble if Stone was pregnant.
The punishment verdict, reached Tuesday after jurors found Arnold guilty the day before, closes the trial phase of a case that had already sent his co-defendant, Chelsea Ann-Marie Shipp, to prison for 40 years under a plea agreement. The case drew notice in southeast Texas because Stone was a teenager, the body was found in Arnold’s bed, and court records described a plan to conceal the killing rather than report it. The immediate question at trial was whether Arnold was legally responsible for murder even though prosecutors said Shipp fired the shot.
The public timeline began on Sunday, March 27, 2022, when Jefferson County deputies were notified around 5 p.m. of a possible murder at a home in the 14000 block of Kolb’s Corner in west Jefferson County. Deputies arrived and found the body of a 16-year-old girl with a gunshot wound. The sheriff’s office later identified her as Katelynn Nicole Stone of Vidor. Arnold was arrested at the home and charged with murder, with bond set at $1 million. Two days later, investigators announced they were also seeking Shipp, and on March 31 deputies and officers in Liberty Hill arrested her on the same charge. From the start, the case moved on two tracks: a homicide inquiry into who pulled the trigger, and a broader investigation into whether the killing had been planned and then covered up.
According to a probable cause affidavit later described in court reporting, Arnold told investigators Stone was his girlfriend, that she was 16 and that she was “possibly pregnant” after an at-home test came back positive. He also said he had been using methamphetamine with Shipp and that the two had argued about Stone’s age and his relationship with her. Arnold claimed that when he returned to the bedroom on March 26, he saw Shipp pointing a gun at Stone while the girl was lying in bed. He said Shipp pulled the trigger, killing her. But the affidavit did not stop at that version. Investigators said Arnold failed to report the killing, left Stone’s body in the bed for many hours, lied about when he had last seen her and took steps that prosecutors later said showed he was acting with Shipp rather than reacting in shock after the fact.
The physical scene described in the records became central to that argument. A detective who searched the house found Stone’s body on the bed in Arnold’s bedroom and saw a shell casing on the pillow beside her. Court reporting from the case said part of her body was wrapped in a garbage bag and blanket, while a large trash can with a fresh liner stood next to the bed. The affidavit also described efforts to find a vehicle that could be used to move the body. A friend told investigators that Shipp borrowed her car on March 26, saying she had “business to take care of,” then returned it the next morning. That same witness said Shipp admitted what she had done. According to the affidavit, Shipp said, “I got rid of her,” then added that Arnold had asked her to “take care of something for him.” Investigators said those statements, together with the condition of the scene, supported the claim that the killing was followed by an effort to conceal it.
The motive described by prosecutors was blunt and disturbing. Trial coverage said the state argued Arnold feared legal consequences because Stone was underage and might be pregnant. During trial, prosecutor Jimmy Hamm said Arnold and Shipp were “talking about what they were going to do” before the shooting. Local coverage also reported prosecutors said Arnold feared being labeled a sex offender if the relationship and pregnancy became known. But one important fact remained uncertain even after the theory of motive took shape. A preliminary autopsy released days after Stone’s death found no evidence of pregnancy. That meant the case did not turn on proving Stone actually was pregnant. Instead, the state’s theory was that Arnold and Shipp acted on what they believed or feared at the time, and that belief was enough to explain the killing prosecutors laid out for the jury.
The case then moved slowly through the court system. In June 2022, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted both Arnold and Shipp on murder charges. Shipp’s case ended first. On June 6, 2025, Judge John Stevens sentenced her to 40 years in prison after she entered a plea agreement and admitted she shot and killed Stone at Arnold’s home. Local reporting on that hearing said the court record still described Arnold as helping obtain a vehicle to conceal the body, failing to contact law enforcement and misleading investigators about Stone’s whereabouts. Arnold remained jailed and waited for trial. By the time his case reached a jury in March 2026, the legal question was not simply whether he was present. It was whether his conduct before and after the shot made him criminally liable for murder under Texas law.
Jurors answered that question on Monday, March 23, when they found Arnold guilty. The punishment phase followed, and on Tuesday afternoon they set his sentence at 34 years in prison. The sentence was shorter than the one Shipp received but still substantial, and it came after Arnold faced a punishment range that included life in prison. The verdict left both defendants with lengthy prison terms in the same case: 40 years for Shipp and 34 for Arnold. Public summaries of the trial do not fully lay out every defense argument or every piece of testimony jurors heard. Even so, the record available from sheriff’s releases, affidavit reporting and local court coverage shows the outline clearly: a teenage girl shot while in bed, a body left in Arnold’s room, witness accounts describing Shipp’s admissions, and prosecutors arguing that Arnold helped set the crime in motion and then tried to hide it.
For Stone’s family and for people in Jefferson County who followed the case from the first sheriff’s release to this week’s sentence, the ruling closed one more chapter in a killing that has been public for nearly four years. Stone was 16. She was found in a house where investigators said she had been living with an older boyfriend. The details that emerged over time were stark and often hard to read: the shell casing on the pillow, the body left in the room, the borrowed car, and the witness statements saying Shipp spoke about the killing the next morning. By the end of Arnold’s trial, jurors were not being asked to decide whether the death happened. They were being asked whether Arnold shared responsibility for it. Their answer means both people charged in Stone’s death are now headed to prison for decades.
As of March 28, 2026, Arnold stands convicted and sentenced to 34 years, while Shipp is already serving her 40-year term. The next milestone is any post-trial motion or appeal Arnold may file as the case moves from trial court into its next stage.
Author note: Last updated March 28, 2026.