Kentucky News Now

KENTUCKY EXECUTIONS-WILSON

Kentucky high court to case of condemned inmate

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Supreme Court has opted to hear oral arguments in the case of a death row inmate convicted in a 1987 kidnapping and slaying of a woman.

The justices set an Oct. 16 hearing date for 57-year-old Gregory L. Wilson. Wilson was convicted on Oct. 31, 1998 of kidnapping and killing Deborah Pooley of Kenton County 19 months earlier.

Wilson and a female accomplice forced Pooley into the back seat of her car. Wilson raped the victim and later strangled her while the accomplice was driving.

The arguments will center on Wilson's claim that his appeals counsel was ineffective and on issues related to DNA evidence.

Kentucky is under a judge's order halting all executions in the state because of questions about how condemned inmates are handled.

TERROR PLOT-INMATE

Inmate involved in terror plot moved to Colorado

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An Iraqi man convicted of trying to ship arms and cash to Al-Qaida in Iraq has been sent to a maximum-security prison.

The Bureau of Prisons listed 33-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan as incarcerated at Florence ADMAX United States Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. Alwan spent several years at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Alwan is serving 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to taking part in a plot to ship cash and weapons from Kentucky to al-Qaida in Iraq in 2010 and 2011. His co-defendant, Mohanad Hammadi, is serving a life sentence at the facility.

Prosecutors say the men worked with the Mujahidin Shura Council, a group that claimed responsibility for the June 2006 deaths of three soldiers from the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division.

OLD CASE-APPEAL DENIED

Kentucky court denies appeal in 45-year-old case

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An inmate who has been in prison since 1969 for murder and rape has lost a bid for freedom after the Kentucky Court of Appeals concluded that age and ill health did not warrant his release.

Judge Irv Maze wrote for the court that 66-year-old Leroy Fryrear failed to raise any valid legal claim to overturn his conviction and sentence stemming from the 1969 rape and murder of Faith Ann Callahan of Louisville.

Fryrear argued that a sentence of life in prison was no longer equitable because of his poor health and age. Fryrear also noted that Kentucky did away with life in prison without parole as a sentence for rape in 1975.

Maze says lawmakers didn't make the law retroactive, so it didn't apply to Fryrear.

FATHER KILLED-SON ARRESTED

Kentucky man charged with killing father

BARBOURVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A southern Kentucky man has been charged with shooting and killing his father.

Kentucky State Police say Travis Carnes fired a gun at 61-year-old Harold Carnes Friday morning at his Knox County home.

WKYT-TV in Lexington and WYMT-TV in Hazard reported that family members in a nearby body shop heard two loud pops from Harold Carnes' home. Police say Travis Carnes yelled for family members to kill him before police arrived.

State police say no one else was in the home when the shooting took place.

The body has been sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

Travis Carnes was being held in the Knox County Detention Center. Jail records did not list an attorney.

OIL TRAINS-KENTUCKY

Oil trains crisscross Kentucky on weekly basis

(Information in the following story is from: WDRB-TV, http://www.fox41.com)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Emergency Management officials say freight trains loaded with volatile crude oil crisscross seven Kentucky counties on a weekly basiss.

As many as five CSX Corp. trains carry oil from the upper Great Plains' Bakken shale fields into Boyd and Greenup counties in northeastern Kentucky. A similar number rolls through Henderson, Webster, Hopkins, Christian and Todd counties in the western part of the state.

WDRB-TV in Louisville reports that the trains skip the state's largest cities but skirt areas along the Ohio River near the Ohio and West Virginia borders and pass directly through Henderson, Hopkinsville and other cities in western Kentucky.

Until earlier this year, railroads had no obligation to notify communities where large quantities of that oil rumbled past their schools, homes and businesses.

ESCAPED INMATE

Inmate escapes from Grant Co. Detention Center

(Information in the following story is from: WKYT-TV, http://www.wkyt.com)

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky State Police are searching for an inmate who escaped from the Grant County Detention Center.

According to WKYT-TV, 31-year-old Uriah Snyder was missing at the Sunday morning prisoner count.

He was being held for probation violation charges and prior charges of robbery second degree.

Snyder also was charged with theft by unlawful taking out of Pendleton County.

UK TOMBSTONE

Widow honors husband's devotion with UK tombstone

JACKSON, Ky. (AP) — After less than five years of marriage to her high school sweetheart, Judy Back became a widow. A massive heart attack took away her husband, William Charlie Back, at age 49.

He had told Judy that he wanted to be buried in a Navy dress uniform. He was a Navy veteran who served during the Persian Gulf War.

However, one day on her way to work she passed Trinity Monuments, where owner Earl Chapman put tombstones on display outside his business. One featured a University of Kentucky basketball theme: a wildcat swiping a paw above interlocking "U'' and "K'' letters.

Back thought a UK-style tombstone would be a way to honor her husband, since he was a big fan.

So, in 2012, there came to be UK tombstones in the Jackson Cemetery -- blue letters "U'' and "K'' for Bill's plot, pink for Judy.

SENATE-GRIDLOCK BLAME

In Senate races, candidates tackle the blame game

ATLANTA (AP) — Candidates battling for control of the Senate have shifted their campaign rhetoric to the party leaders themselves.

Republican and Democratic outsiders in key races have sidestepped questions about whether they would vote for their respective party leaders should they win a Senate seat.

Their entrenched opponents have used that ambivalence to impress upon voters that a vote for these candidates is a vote for the status quo.

If Democrats win, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada would keep the Senate's top job.

If Republicans win, their majority leader would be Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Democrats Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky, Michelle Nunn in Georgia and Natalie Tennant in West Virginia have all declined to say who they would vote for majority leader.

So has Republican Jodi Ernst in Iowa.