This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

LIBERTY, Mo — Forty-five-year-old Gordon McBeth pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of 28-year-old Darryl Gilland.

It happened Friday at a home on North Topping Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, where Gilland lived and McBeth was the landlord.

Gilland and girlfriend Samantha Pohlman just moved into the home a week before he was killed. It was part of their dream come true. The two met online five years ago and fell in love at first sight on their first date.

“He was such a sweet, nervous gentleman from the beginning,” Pohlman said.

Their love story ended in tragedy Friday when Pohlman said McBeth came over to fix the heat in the house, angry when he got there for having to work on his vacation.

“The guy said, ‘If that’s not good enough, I will kill you,” and then he pulled out a knife and started stabbing him,” Pohlman said. 

Hearing Pohlman’s screams, two neighbors rushed over and one pulled McBeth off of Gilland, the other held him at gunpoint until police arrived. Court records state Gilland was stabbed over 30 times.

“I pet his head and I told him it was going to be OK and the ambulance was coming and that I loved him,” Pohland said of the last words she said to Giland before he died in her arms.

It’s an incident that Gilland’s parents struggle to understand.

“He brought a knife over just to kill my son,” said dad Darryl Gilland, who the younger Gilland was named after. “My son is a gentle giant. He never had a fight in his whole life.”

The elder Gilland believes his son’s murder was premeditated and thinks McBeth should be charged with first-degree murder instead of the lesser charge of second-degree murder.

The 28-year-old was killed in the prime of his life. Taken from his family and his true love at a time when Gilland was blooming.

The elder Gilland remembered a recent conversation where he told his son how proud of him he was.

“He knew that I was proud of him?” Gilland asked Pohland. She replied, “After you said it on the phone, he got so excited, like, ‘Oh my God, my dad is proud of me!’ He posted it on Facebook.”

The Gilland family is in deep pain over their loss and want justice. They plan on asking the prosecutor to amend the charges against McBeth to first-degree murder.

McBeth will be back in court Nov. 2.