Harris won money playing craps and used it to buy 2 machine guns. After giving them to a friend, Michael Taylor, for safekeeping, he came back later demanding the firearms. Stanley "Hank" Willoughby had assisted Taylor in hiding the firearms, and Willoughby was aided by two children. When Willoughby told Harris that he did not know where the firearms were, the argument grew heated. Harris pulled a .41 revolver and shot Willoughby in the face. Harris was arrested 2 weeks later for an armed robbery in Columbia. In 1982, Harris was convicted of Robbery in the First Degree and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.
During his trial Harris admitted killing Willoughby but said it was in self-defense during an argument in a drug house. "I was afraid for my life," he testified. At the time, Harris had gained a reputation as one of the most prolific robbers in recent Kansas City history. He had five felony convictions but had beaten at least four armed-robbery charges. Authorities called him the "top of his field." Defense attorneys said the previous convictions influenced the jury to find him guilty. George Harris, 41, was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of 20-year-old Stanley Willoughby of Kansas City in March 1989.