Crab Orchard

CRAB ORCHARD - A Lincoln County man was arrested Wednesday after he was caught in the middle of an alleged break-in on Lancaster Road near Crab Orchard. Frankie Simpson, 28, of 405 Ash St. in Crab Orchard was charged with burglary and possession of burglary tools and lodged in the Lincoln County Regional Jail. According to Sheriff Curt Folger, Chris Cope was driving by his father's home at 1205 Lancaster Road and noticed the front door was standing open and a strange vehicle in the driveway.

LANCASTER - Authorities have identified a body found in a Garrard County field as 55-year-old Crab Orchard resident Floyd Smith. Smith's body was discovered Sunday by Stephen Crouch, who was clearing a field off of Crab Orchard Road with a tractor-powered mower, according to state police. Garrard County Coroner Daryl Hodge said Smith's body was resting in high weeds and Crouch accidentally ran over the body with the mower. Family members of Smith apparently filed a missing person report with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, but no one at the Sheriff's Office was available who knew when the report had been filed.

A Crab Orchard man has been arrested after the Lincoln County sheriff found 54 marijuana plants growing in plain sight behind a house. Roy A. Dooley, 48, was charged Wednesday with cultivating marijuana and violating the terms of his probation. An anonymous call on May 3 tipped the sheriff's department off about the marijuana plants, which were found along Mike Genton Road. Sheriff Curt Folger said Dooley's mother was in the house when he and Deputy Jeremy Garrison arrived on the scene.

CRAB ORCHARD — A Garrard County man has been charged with taking more than $1,000 from D&M Market at knifepoint over the weekend. Kenneth Tuttle, 35, 3533 Harmon’s Lick Road, is being held in the Lincoln County Regional Jail today under a $25,000 cash bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Lincoln District Court on a first-degree robbery charge. According to a press release from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, Tuttle was wearing a mask when he entered the store on Stanford Street Saturday afternoon.

CRAB ORCHARD - A Crab Orchard man died this morning in a house fire along Pine Grove Road, officials said. Teddy Lee Day, 61, did not survive a blaze that began at hishomein the early morning hours around 1 or 2 a.m. Lincoln County Fire Chief Danny Glass said Day's home was completely engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived on the scene. It took around an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze, he said. Family members gathered next door at the home of Day's son and daughter-in-law, Shawn and Brandy Day, as they began dealing with the tragedy.

CRAB ORCHARD - Many old military buddies get together for golf outings, but when Danny Godbey and Richard P'Pool hang out, they spend their time in a graveyard instead. "Well, we don't have have greens fees," P'Pool said. All last week, Godbey, a deacon at Crab Orchard Baptist, and his friend P'Pool, from western Kentucky, were busy in the church's cemetery, excavating centuries-old gravestones, repairing them and replacing them upright. The Crab Orchard Baptist Cemetery has graves from as early as the 1790s and as late as the 1930s.

STANFORD — The white room was cold. Bodies were motionless on stretchers. Blood was everywhere. But 73-year-old David Miracle was still excited.    He had driven 11 miles from Crab Orchard to Stanford Presbyterian Church in Stanford Thursday to participate in a blood drive sponsored by the Kentucky Blood Center.  “I started giving blood in 1974 at the casket factory,” said¿the white-bearded, soft-spoken man. “They came one time and left for 10 years, and I went 10 years without giving.

The cause of death of a 37-year-old Crab Orchard man found dead in his home Friday remains a mystery, Lincoln County Coroner Farris Marcum said earlier this week. An autopsy on the body of Shane Riley of Ash Street was conducted Saturday by the state medical examiner’s office in Frankfort, and Marcum said the results were “inconclusive pending further tests.” “I don’t believe foul play was involved, so it appears he died accidentally or of natural causes,” he said.

The Crab Orchard branch of First Southern National Bank will be closing its doors at the end of August, forcing customers to bank elsewhere.   Located on Main Street in downtown Crab Orchard, the bank has been the financial epicenter for the city since its opening. The bank will offer full services until July 1 then will only operate the drive-thru until it permanently shuts down on Aug. 30. In conjunction with the closure of the bank in Crab Orchard, First Southern is also closing its Paint Lick branch.  These banks are being closed in an effort to consolidate branches and in a press release, Tommy Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of First Southern, stated that it “is no longer feasible” to operate these two locations.

The city of Crab Orchard filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Lincoln Circuit Court against ERJ Manufacturing, Inc., and five of the city's creditors. "We're just trying to get everybody in front of the court and go from there," said Paul Long, who is representing Crab Orchard in the case. "We brought it to try and resolve some difficulties with the city. " Long said the metal stamping plant operated by ERJ, which opened in Crab Orchard in 2004, has the city "obligated beyond anything they can ever afford.