Homicide

DUNNVILLE - A preliminary autopsy has determined that Wendell Pyles was murdered Wednesday night as he worked alone in a building at Tarter Manufacturing, but police are releasing no additional information on the shooting today. “I think we have some things to go on and the investigation is progressing, but we're keeping it pretty close to the vest. We can't compromise where we are at this point,” Trooper Billy Gregory, spokesman for Kentucky State Police Post 15 in Columbia, said this morning.

Police have identified the victim from a Wednesday homicide and charged a Georgetown man with murder. The victim, identified as 33-year-old Andrew David Ingram of 210 Whitney Court, was found behind 225 Whitney Court around 1:30 p.m., Winchester Police Capt. James Hall said. He had been shot once in the back, and may have been hiding from his pursuers, Hall said. So far, the weapon has not been recovered. Late Wednesday afternoon, police charged 26-year-old Percy Hargrove III of Georgetown with murder, first-degree burglary and tampering with physical evidence, Hall said.

The woman at the center of a Wednesday's homicide in Winchester went to jail late Friday afternoon on complicity charges. Sheena Tipton, 26, of Clay City, was charged with complicity to commit murder and complicity to commit first-degree burglary following the shooting of 33-year-old Andrew David Ingram on Whitney Court. Police said Tipton was Ingram's boyfriend, and was a former girlfriend of murder suspect Percey Hargrove, a former football standout in Scott County. Hargrove was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder, first-degree burglary and tampering withg physical evidence.

The death of a Harrodsburg man who was last seen with the suspect in a deadly double shooting has been ruled a homicide. Lincoln County Coroner Farris Marcum said Monday the final autopsy report from the state medical examiner's office in Frankfort classified the death of Clint Disken, 31, as a homicide, although a cause of death was not determined. Marcum said the level of decomposition made it impossible to identify the exact manner of death or complete a toxicology report. Disken shared a trailer home at 55 Fairlane Ave. in Hustonville with Thomas Hager Jr. until he was last seen in early March.

LIBERTY - Authorities are investigating the discovery of a skull found Oct. 31 on Bastin Creek Road as a homicide. "Due to the analysis of the skull by the state medical examiners' office, it is being treated as a homicide," said Casey County Deputy Coroner Betty Clark. The skull was discovered about a half mile from where a portion of the decomposed body of Sandra Harris, 30, of Bastin Creek Road was found last December. She was reported missing in July 2005. Harris' skull was never recovered, Clark said, adding that it has not been determined if the skull is that of Harris.

STANFORD - The manslaughter and fetal-homicide trial of Carolyn Foley of Crab Orchard is under way in Lincoln Circuit Court. Foley is accused of driving drunk and wrecking her pickup two days before Thanksgiving last year, killing her passenger Brandy Ison Simpson, 26, and the fetus Simpson was carrying. The wreck happened about 4:14 p.m. on Hwy. 643 about two miles south of Crab Orchard. According to The Interior-Journal in Stanford, Commonwealth's Attorney Eddie Montgomery said in his opening statement Monday that Foley was driving while intoxicated, which caused her to run off the road and strike a bridge embankment, killing Simpson.

The Kentucky Supreme Court recently upheld an unusual manslaughter conviction. The case arose in Fayette County where Binta Baraka was charged with manslaughter after her father, Brutus Price, died of a heart attack. Father and daughter were fighting when Brutus, a thin and frail man, collapsed. During a pre-trial hearing, the defense sought to exclude the prosecution's expert, a state medical examiner, who intended to testify that Brutus was a victim of "homicide by heart attack".

Residents of Paris continue to grieve for a 6-year-old boy who was found slain inside his grandfather's garage Saturday. Meanwhile, police are developing new leads in the case. Wesley Dylan Mullins of Winchester died of blunt force trauma in what police officers are calling one of the most horrific murder cases they've seen. "We have a primary person of interest," Paris Police Chief Tim Gray said yesterday. "I don't know that we're close to making an arrest. " Gray said police have gathered physical evidence from the apparent scene of the crime - the storage garage behind grandfather Bobby Mullins' Paris home - and turned it over to the Kentucky State Police's crime lab for analysis.

LEESBURG, Fla. — Florida police are investigating as a homicide the death of a Lancaster man whose body was found Wednesday. According to the Leesburg, Fla. police department, the body of Jamin Coyle, 39, of Lancaster was found by a passerby about 3 p.m. MyFoxOrlando.com reported that the body was found in a wooded area behind an apartment building by a woman walking by. Police had found a Chevy Tahoe that appeared to have been abandoned in a suspicious manor in a vacant lot earlier in the morning.

Murder charges against an alleged drug dealer were reduced to reckless homicide this afternoon after the judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence. After an hour-long preliminary hearing in Clark District Court, 52-year-old Harold Salyers returned to jail facing a much lighter charge. Police were pursuing a wanton murder charge against Salyers, who admitted selling two grams of heroin to Wade Dickerson, Winchester Police Sgt. Tom Beall testified. Dickerson died Aug. 8 in a Lexington hospital.

DUNNVILLE - A preliminary autopsy has determined that Wendell Pyles was murdered Wednesday night as he worked alone in a building at Tarter Manufacturing, but police are releasing no additional information on the shooting today. “I think we have some things to go on and the investigation is progressing, but we're keeping it pretty close to the vest. We can't compromise where we are at this point,” Trooper Billy Gregory, spokesman for Kentucky State Police Post 15 in Columbia, said this morning.

Almost four months after her daughter and granddaughter were found dead in her home, Lillie Stanton was indicted on two counts of murder for their deaths. Stanton, 48,  of 233 Vaught Road, has been incarcerated since May 20 when the bodies of her daughter, 23-year-old Danel Korey Stanton, and her granddaughter, 22-month-old Kaydence Ray Miers, were found inside her home. Police said both had fatal knife wounds to their necks. Lillie Stanton later told police that she suffocated Danel Korey Stanton as well.

The death of a Harrodsburg man who was last seen with the suspect in a deadly double shooting has been ruled a homicide. Lincoln County Coroner Farris Marcum said Monday the final autopsy report from the state medical examiner's office in Frankfort classified the death of Clint Disken, 31, as a homicide, although a cause of death was not determined. Marcum said the level of decomposition made it impossible to identify the exact manner of death or complete a toxicology report. Disken shared a trailer home at 55 Fairlane Ave. in Hustonville with Thomas Hager Jr. until he was last seen in early March.

The man accused of shooting two men to death and seriously wounding another Monday in Danville pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday.  Appearing in Boyle District Court before Judge Jeff Dotson, Thomas Wayne Hager Jr. entered a plea of not guilty to two counts of murder and one count each of attempted murder and tampering with physical evidence. Hager will be held without bond at the Boyle County Detention Center until he appears in court again May 30 for a preliminary hearing.

Double murder suspect Lillie Stanton told police she decided to kill her daughter and granddaughter rather than face the possibility of the child's father gaining more visitation time. Stanton, 48, of 233 Vaught Road, said she was worried about the situation between her daughter and the child's father, according to her arrest citation. In the citation, she told police that she thought about taking 23-year-old Danel Korrey Stanton and 22-month-old Kaydence Ray Miers out of state, but did not have the money.

Details continue to emerge about the victims and the alleged shooter in a double murder Monday in Danville, but information about what led to the killings remains sketchy. Police say Phillip White of Lancaster entered 477 High St. after 4 p.m. and found Thomas W. Hager Jr. holding Mark Snyder, 21, of Waynesburg and Ted Sparks, who lived at the house, at gunpoint. The men were apparently on their knees with their hands behind their backs. Sparks was the father of Snyder's girlfriend.

Double murder suspect Lillie Stanton was released from the hospital this afternoon and lodged in the Clark County Detention Center, three days after she allegedly stabbed her daughter and granddaughter to death. Stanton, 48 of 233 Vaught Road, still had bandages on both arms and her neck from her own self-inflicted wounds following the deaths of Danel Korrey Stanton, 23, and 22-month-old Kaydence Ray Miers Sunday afternoon. Winchester Police Capt. James Hall said Lillie Stanton was released from the University of Kentucky Medical Center around 2:30 p.m. today.

The bench Tina White sat sobbing on outside a Boyle County courtroom was still warm from where the mother of a man her son is accused of killing had been sitting and crying only moments before. Both mothers were in court Tuesday for their sons. White's son was in the courtroom wearing stripes and shackles, accused of killing Anna Begley's son who is buried in Richmond. “I am so sorry she lost her son,” White said. “But I lost mine, too.” She said she is afraid to talk to Begley directly because she doesn't think that how she grieves for them both will be understood.