On the Beat in the Bluegrass

on October 30, 2008

. 10 Comments

By Michelle Ku and Cassondra Kirby-Mullins
Lexington Herald-Leader

Two Eastern Kentucky police officers shot and killed the son of a retired Kentucky State Police trooper after he attacked them with a knife early Thursday morning.

Kentucky State Police Trooper Isaac Whitaker and Martin police Sgt. Brian Ratliff were called to a disturbance at Petry Apartments on Main Street in Martin about 2:30 a.m., said Trooper Scott Hopkins, a spokesman for the state police post in Pikeville.

When they arrived, they found James Anthony Rederick, 38, of Martin standing near his door holding a knife, Hopkins said.

Rederick attacked Ratliff and both officers drew their weapons and shot Rederick, Hopkins said.

Rederick was taken to St. Joseph’s Martin Hospital, where he was pronounced dead by the Floyd County coroner, Hopkins said.

Ratliff is expected to recover from knife wounds to his neck, Hopkins said. He is listed in good condition at St. Joseph’s Martin Hospital.

Whitaker was not injured in the attack. He has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

Whitaker had worked for the Hazard Police Department, where he had been a captain, before becoming a trooper. He has been employed with the state police for a year.

Rederick is the son of retired Trooper James Rederick. The elder Rederick, who works for the Administrative Office of the Courts in courtroom security, could not be reached for comment.

The younger Rederick had been in trouble before. He had been charged with theft, public intoxication, second-degree wanton endangerment and terroristic threatening, according to court records.

In 2001, he also was charged with two counts of third-degree assault against police officers. However, those charges were later dismissed.

Reach Michelle Ku at (859) 231-1335 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 1335.

Marshals arrest brother of woman found in trunk

Published

on October 29, 2008

in Scott County

. 0 Comments

By Sarah Vos
svos@herald-leader.com

GEORGETOWN — Investigators have arrested a Georgetown man whose sister’s body was found mummified last week in the trunk of his car.

Timothy Allen Brown, 30, was arrested Tuesday evening in St. Louis at a public library, Georgetown police Chief Greg Reeves said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

Reeves said Brown was found by U.S. Marshals and the St. Louis police who searched the area where his car was found late last week.

On Friday, the severely decomposed body of Brown’s 31-year-old sister, Penny, was discovered after police towed Brown’s 1998 Chevy Malibu from St. Louis to Kentucky. They had received complaints that it had been on the street for several days.

Investigators obtained a search warrant to look in the car for any clues about Timothy’s or Penny’s whereabouts. Upon receiving the warrant Friday, police unlocked the trunk and found Penny Brown’s “badly decomposed” body, which was wrapped in blankets — an attempt to conceal the decomposition, Reeves said — and bagged with industrial-grade plastic, possibly to contain the odor, he said.

Police have said that Timothy Brown signed his wheelchair-bound sister out of a Georgetown nursing home in 2006, and was cashing the disabled woman’s Social Security Income checks, which were between $600 and $700 per month. Reeves said during Wednesday’s news conference that the remains may have been in his apartment for two years. It isn’t clear how she died.

While Penny Brown might have been dead for two years, Reeves said no missing person report was made until Sept. 20.

Reeves said they think her body was in a back bedroom of Timothy Brown’s apartment. They found evidence consistent with that when they searched the apartment on Tuesday, Reeves said.

Timothy Brown is the father of an 8-year-old son, whom the state removed from the Georgetown apartment around the time that the missing person’s investigation began. Reeves said Timothy Brown disappeared shortly after that.

Investigators think the body was in the apartment when the child was in the home. Investigators say Timothy Brown then put the body in the car and fled.

“We believe that the body was moved to the vehicle at some point after the child was removed from the home,” Reeves said Wednesday.

Brown is up for an extradition hearing today.

ALSO READ Police: Woman found in trunk might have been dead 2 years

Mother of baby left on porch is indicted

Published

on October 29, 2008

. 5 Comments

By Brandon Ortiz
bortiz@herald-leader.com

A Lexington mother accused of leaving a newborn baby on a front porch has been indicted on felony charges.

In an indictment released Wednesday, a Fayette grand jury charged Ashlee Stephens, 23, with abandonment of a minor, a Class D felony with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Stephens is accused of leaving her child at a house on Lincoln Avenue, near downtown Lexington, on July 2. Stephens lived nearby on Catalpa Road but did not know the woman who lived there, police say.

The state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services took custody of the baby, who was found wrapped in blankets and put in a laundry basket on the front porch.

Stephens is scheduled to be arraigned in Fayette Circuit Court on Nov. 7.

It is legal to anonymously leave a child at a hospital or police station, but laws prevent adults from intentionally abandoning minors and placing them at risk of injury, according to police.

Police find 2 missing Nicholasville boys

Published

on October 29, 2008

. 3 Comments

By Sarah Vos
svos@herald-leader.com

UPDATED at 10:58 a.m.: Nicholasville police have located two boys who had been reported missing.

Police said the boys — 3-year-old Kaleb Boles and 4-month-old Brayden — were located but no information on their conditions was available.

The boys were supposed to be dropped off with their mother Tuesday afternoon, but Jonathan R. Hensley, of Nicholasville, never arrived with the boys.

Hensley, 31, is the 4-month-old’s father and the boyfriend of the children’s mother. Police said earlier Wednesday that Hensley hadn’t contacted the mother or anyone else.

During the search for the boys, police say that no crime had been committed, but the children’s mother wanted to know her children were safe.

Hensley was believed to be in the Lexington area.

Lawsuit filed over toddler’s death in house fire

Published

on October 28, 2008

. 0 Comments

The family of a toddler killed in a fire in north Corbin has filed suit against the maker of an electric heating pad which firefighters believe sparked the blaze.

London attorney Warren Scoville provided copies of the complaint filed in the 27th Judicial Circuit Court.s

In the suit, the family contends negligence on the part of Wal-Mart, Dunlap, the company that made the heating pad, and J.T. Thomas, who managed the London Wal-Mart Store when the pad was sold.

Read the full story in the London Sentinel-Echo.

Pinned by SUV, woman, 60 dies from injuries

Published

on October 28, 2008

. 2 Comments

A woman died Tuesday evening after she was pinned between her Oakwood Drive house and her sport-utility vehicle.

Barbara Slatter, 60, died at the University of Kentucky hospital about 5:30 p.m., an hour after she was pinned between the vehicle’s door and part of her porch after the SUV rolled into the porch, according to a Fayette County Coroner’s Office press release.

Slatter is the wife of the Rev. Leon Slatter, pastor of Cadentown Missionary Baptist Church. Arrangements are pending through the Smith and Smith Funeral Home.

Investigators call April death a homicide

Published

on October 28, 2008

in Lexington police

. 0 Comments

By Steve Lannen

slannen@herald-leader.com

Family members found Regina Renea Johnson dead on her bed in early April.

On Tuesday, more than six months later, authorities said publicly that the 44-year-old Lexington woman was murdered.

Jones was strangled and suffocated, said a Fayette County coroner’s press release on Tuesday. An autopsy was conducted in April at the state medical examiner’s office in Frankfort and later ruled a homicide.

“From day one, in my heart, I thought it was a homicide and not a natural cause of death,” said Camisha Young, a longtime close friend. “It’s been real hard just knowing she was murdered and not having any answer as to how.”

Lexington police Lt. James Curless said Tuesday evening that police early on thought Johnson’s death was suspicious.

“The more we looked at it, the more concerns we had about it,” he said.

Announcing the case in the local media could help shed more light on Johnson’s death, Curless said. “There are people we feel who have information that could help us resolve this case,” he said.

Last night, Young stood outside the apartments where Johnson died at 420 Rogers Road, off North Broadway and across from the Joyland Bowl and Park.

Johnson had lived there for about three months with three teenage children and a 2-year-old grandchild, Young said. Her daughter’s boyfriend also lived with them, she said.

She recalled a phone conversation she had with Johnson, who told her she was going to ask the boyfriend to move out of the house because she thought he was causing problems for her daughter.

Young, however, doesn’t know what happened next.

“There were four people in the house, no (signs of) breaking in. Somebody knows something,” she said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lexington police at (859) 258-3700 or call CrimeStoppers (859) 253-2020.

Berea man, 82, accused of trading pills for sex

Published

on October 28, 2008

in Madison County

. 5 Comments

By Ashlee Clark
aclark@herald-leader.com

BEREA — An 82-year-old man is accused of trading Oxycontin for sexual favors from two women.

Archie Anglin was arrested Oct. 21 on charges of trafficking in a controlled substance. He was also charged with possession of a controlled substance after Berea Police Det. Lee Ann Roberts discovered what appeared to be 11 hydrocodone tablets and eight alprazolam pills, the generic form of Xanax, in an aspirin bottle when she served Anglin with a warrant, the arrest report states.

Anglin was taken to Madison County jail and released Thursday on a $10,000 property bond. He is scheduled to appear in Madison County District Court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing.

Berea police began to investigate Anglin after he made several calls to police regarding stolen property. There were often young women who were not related to Anglin at his home when officers responded to his home on Highway 1016, said Berea Police Capt. Ken Clark.

Officers initially investigated because of concern that the young people were taking advantage of Anglin because of his age, Clark said. During the investigation, two women told police they had performed sexual favors for Anglin in exchange for Oxycontin.

Campbellsville man allegedly kills mother in Louisville

Published