Kentucky
A serial killer, kidnappers, burglars: These 25 people are on death row in Kentucky
Editor’s note: This story includes language that may not be suitable for all audiences.
Most of Kentucky’s most violent convicted offenders have spent decades on death row.
The last time Kentucky issued a state-facilitated execution, it was 2008. America had entered the Great Recession, Barack Obama was just elected for his first term as U.S. president and Kentucky inmate Marco Allen Chapman — convicted of murdering two small children and attempting to kill a third and their mother — had repeatedly asked to be put to death.
Before Chapman, it was Edward Lee Harper, who was Kentucky’s first execution by lethal injection in 1999, after he waived his remaining appeals for his conviction of killing his parents in Louisville.
A 2010 ruling by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd halted executions over concerns about the state’s lethal injection protocol. But Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is now pushing to lift that ban.
As the debate over lethal injections resumes, 25 people currently sit on the commonwealth’s death row, most of whom are housed at the Kentucky State Penitentiary — save for the only woman, Virginia Caudill, who is at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women.
From an American serial killer who once had his death sentence reversed to a man convicted of Louisville’s high-profile “Trinity murders,” here’s a look at every inmate who remains on death row.
Karu Gene White
Age: 65
County of crime: Breathitt
Time on death row: 44 years
On the evening of Feb. 12, 1979, White and two accomplices entered a Haddix store operated by two elderly men, Charles Gross and Sam Chaney, and an elderly woman, Lula Gross. White and his accomplices bludgeoned the three victims to death and stole a billfold with $7,000, coins and a handgun. White was arrested that July.
David Eugene Matthews
Age: 75
County of crime: Jefferson
Time on death row: 41 years
Matthews was convicted of murdering his estranged wife and mother-in-law, Mary Matthews and Magdalene Cruse, on June 29, 1981 in Louisville. He also burglarized Matthews’ home.
Mitchell Willoughby
Age: 65
County of crime: Fayette
Time on death row: 40 years
Willoughby was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of three people alongside Leif Halvorsen, whose death sentence was commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole by former Gov. Matt Bevin. On Jan. 13, 1983, the two men shot Jacqueline Greene, Joe Norman and Joey Durham to death in a Lexington apartment. They attempted to dispose of the bodies that night by throwing them from the Brooklyn Bridge in Jessamine County.
Brian Moore
Age: 66
County of crime: Jefferson
Time on death row: 39 years
Moore was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, robbery and murder of 79-year-old Virgil Harris on Aug. 10, 1979 in Louisville. Harris was returning to his car from a grocery store parking lot when Moore abducted him, drove him to a wooded area and killed him.
Victor D. Taylor
Age: 64
County of crime: Jefferson
Time on death row: 38 years
On Sept. 29, 1984, Taylor and another man kidnapped two Trinity High School students, Scott Nelson and Richard Stephenson, who had stopped to ask for directions to a local football game. The men took the boys to a vacant lot, robbed them and shot them to death. Taylor was arrested less than a week later.
Benny Lee Hodge
Age: 72
County of crime: Letcher, Jackson
Time on death row: 38 years
Hodge has received two death sentences for separate crimes occurring within months of one another.
On the night of Aug. 8, 1985, Hodge and Roger Epperson posed as FBI agents and entered the home of a physician, Dr. Roscoe Acker, in Fleming-Neon. The men choked the doctor unconscious and stabbed his daughter, Tammy Acker, to death in addition to robbing the family of $1.9 million, handguns and jewelry. Hodge was arrested in Florida on Aug. 15, 1985.
He later received a second death sentence on Nov. 22, 1996 for the murder and robbery of Bessie and Edwin Morris in their home in Gray Hawk on June 16, 1985.
Roger Dale Epperson
Age: 74
County of crime: Letcher, Jackson
Time on death row: 38 years
Epperson is currently on death row for the murder and robbery of Bessie and Edwin Morris in their home in Gray Hawk on June 16, 1985. He also received a death sentence in connection to the murder of Tammy Acker but had secured a deal with prosecutors in 2019 to switch that sentence to life in prison.
David Lee Sanders
Age: 63
County of crime: Madison
Time on death row: 37 years
Sanders is believed to have murdered Jim Brandenburg and Wayne Hatch on Jan. 28, 1987 during a grocery store robbery.
Ronnie Lee Bowling
Age: 55
County of crime: Laurel County
Time on death row: 31 years
Bowling was sentenced to death for the murders of two gas station attendants in two separate robberies. Bowling shot and killed Ronald Smith, a London service station attendant, on Jan. 20, 1989. Approximately a month later, he robbed and killed Marvin Hensley, a service station manager in the same town. Bowling was arrested three days later.
Robert Foley
Age: 67
County of crime: Madison
Time on death row: 30 years
Foley is convicted of a total of six murders between 1989 to 1991.
Foley was sentenced to death for the 1991 murders of two brothers, Rodney and Lynn Vaughn, during an argument at his Madison County residence. He was later given a second death sentence for the 1989 murders of Kimberly Bowersock, Lillian Contino, Jerry McMillen and Calvin Reynolds. He killed the four victims because he thought one of them had reported him to his parole officer.
Ralph Baze
Age: 69
County of crime: Powell
Time on death row: 30 years
In January 1992, Baze killed two police officers — Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and Deputy Arthur Briscoe — with an assault rifle after the officers went to Baze’s home to serve him an arrest warrant. Baze was arrested the same day in Estill County. Baze was part of a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court decision when he argued that Kentucky’s execution by lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. However, the justices upheld Kentucky’s method of lethal injection as constitutional by a 7-2 majority ruling.
Randy Haight
Age: 72
County of crime: Garrard
Time on death row: 30 years
Haight was sentenced to death for murdering Patricia Vance and David Omer shortly after he escaped custody from the Johnson County Jail. The bodies of Vance and Omer were discovered inside their car in Garrard County. Haight was apprehended the next day in a cornfield in Mercer County.
William Eugene Thompson
Age: 73
County: Lyon
Time on death row: 26 years
Thompson was serving a life sentence at the then-named Western Kentucky Farm Center on the charge of willful murder for hire when he murdered Correctional Officer Fred Cash, which earned him a death sentence.
While working with an inmate crew, Thompson struck Cash repeatedly in the head with a hammer, dragged the body into a barn stall and fled in the prison farm van. Police arrested Thompson at a bus station on his way to Indiana. Thompson was initially sentenced to death in October 1986. However, seven years later, the state Supreme Court threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial. After that trial, Thompson was subsequently sentenced to death again.
Donald Johnson
Age: 57
County of crime: Perry
Time on death row: 26 years
Helen Madden’s body was found on Nov. 30, 1989 at the Bright and Clean Laundry in Hazard, where she worked. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. Johnson was arrested shortly after her body’s discovery.
Vincent Stopher
Age: 52
County of Crime: Jefferson
Time on death row: 26 years
On March 10, 1997, Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Gregory Hans was dispatched to the home of Stopher and Kathleen Becker. A struggle occurred, which led to Stopher obtaining Hans’ pistol and shooting him.
Fred Furnish
Age: 56
County of crime: Kenton
Time on death row: 25 years
On June 25, 1998, Furnish entered Ramona Jean Williamson’s Crestview Hills home and strangled her to death. Furnish later used her debit cards to withdraw money from her bank accounts.
Robert Keith Woodall
Age: 50
County of crime: Muhlenberg
Time on death row: 25 years
On Jan. 25, 1997, Woodall abducted Sarah Hansen from the Minit Mart parking lot in Greenville. After driving to Luzerne Lake, he raped her and inflicted physical injuries. Afterwards, he discarded her body in the water. Hansen’s autopsy later revealed she had died by drowning.
Virginia Caudill
Age: 63
County of crime: Fayette
Time on death row: 24 years
On March 15, 1998, Caudill and Johnathan Wayne Goforth entered the home of 73-year-old Lonetta White, beat her to death, then burglarized her home. White was the mother of Caudill’s ex-boyfriend. They placed her body in the trunk of her vehicle and drove her to a rural area in Fayette County, where they subsequently set the car on fire.
Jonathan Wayne Goforth
Age: 63
County of crime: Fayette
Time on death row: 24 years
On March 15, 1998, Goforth and Caudill entered the home of Lonetta White, beat her to death, then burglarized her home. They placed her body in the trunk of her vehicle and drove her to a rural area in Fayette County, where they subsequently set the car on fire.
Roger Wheeler
Age: 63
County: Jefferson
Time on death row: 23 years
While on parole for several counts of first-degree robbery, Wheeler killed Nigel Malone and Nairobi Warfield on Oct. 2, 1997. Both victims were stabbed multiple times with a pair of scissors. When detectives arrived at the scene, they discovered the scissors still in the neck of one of the victims as a trail of blood led out into the street. Blood samples collected at the scene matched Wheeler’s DNA.
Samuel Steven Fields
Age: 52
County of crime: Floyd
Time on death row: 20 years
During the early hours of Aug. 19, 1993, Fields entered the home of 84-year-old Bess Horton through a back window. Fields stabbed Horton in the head and slashed her throat. The large knife used to slash her throat was found protruding from her right temple area. Fields was arrested at the scene.
He was initially sentenced to death on April 29, 1997, but his case was reversed and remanded approximately three years later. He was re-sentenced to death on Jan. 8, 2004.
Shawn Windsor
Age: 60
County of crime: Jefferson
Time on death row: 17 years
Shawn Windsor was convicted of the murders of his wife, Betty Jean Windsor, and 8-year-old son, Corey Windsor. At the time of the murders, a domestic violence order was effect ordering Shawn Windsor to remain at least 500 feet away from Betty Jean Windsor and to commit no further acts of domestic violence. After killing his wife and son, Shawn Windsor fled to Nashville in his wife’s car, which he later ditched in a hospital parking garage. Nine months later, he was captured in North Carolina.
James Hunt
Age: 75
County: Floyd
Time on death row: 17 years
James Hunt was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of Bettina Hunt, his estranged wife. Police officers found Bettina Hunt’s body at her residence and pronounced her dead at the scene with several gunshot wounds. Troopers were advised that James Hunt was involved in a one-vehicle accident approximately 200 feet from the residence. Following a police investigation, James Hunt was arrested and convicted of her death.
William Harry Meece
Age: 51
County of crime: Adair
Time on death row: 17 years
On Feb. 26, 2003, Meece is believed to have shot Joseph and Elizabeth Wellnitz and their son, Dennis Wellnitz, to death in their Columbia home.
Larry Lamont White
Age: 66
County: Jefferson
Time on death row: 9 years
White is on death row for the 1983 murder and rape of Pamela Denise Armstrong. White was initially sentenced to death following his 1985 conviction of raping and killing two other women — Yolanda Sweeney and Deborah Miles. But the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He later pleaded guilty to the murders and accepted a prison sentence of 28 years. Soon after a DNA sample from the crime scene was matched to White, he was convicted in 2014 for Armstrong’s murder, which happened just weeks prior to the deaths of Sweeney and Miles.
Reach reporter Rachel Smith at rksmith@courierjournal.com or @RachelSmithNews on X, formerly known as Twitter.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 10, 2026) — Growing up in Grayson County, Hollie Hagan always knew she wanted to help people. She just wasn’t sure what that looked like.
Like many students entering college, Hagan originally envisioned a career in healthcare. She planned to study nutrition and dietetics, inspired by time spent volunteering at her local food pantry. But an internship with the Grayson County Health Department during her senior year of high school introduced her to a field she hadn’t even realized existed — public health.
“I had no clue what a health department does or even what public health was,” Hagan said. “Then I got there and saw all the ways they were helping people, both directly and indirectly. I thought, ‘This is something I really want to be a part of.’”
That experience changed everything.
Alongside her coursework, she has served as a College of Public Health senator in the Student Government Association, has moderated public health panels and is participating in the Rural Public Health Scholars Program, a combination of course- and fieldwork that places students in rural communities to work on projects aimed at improving health outcomes.
But throughout those experiences, one goal has remained constant — returning to the community that helped shape her.
“I’ve realized that with public health you can make an impact on any level,” said Hagan, who is also a Lewis Honors College student. “For me, I want to be at the local level helping people.”
That desire has been evident since she first arrived at the Grayson County Health Department.
Josh Horton, public health director for the Grayson County Health Department, said Hagan quickly distinguished herself through both her work ethic and willingness to learn.
“Hollie has always been a very capable person,” he said. “You just give her instructions, and she runs with it.”
While Hagan entered her high school internship knowing she was interested in leadership, Horton watched her interests evolve as she gained firsthand experience in public health.
“When she came back to us and said, ‘I want to do something in public health,’ that was a reminder of why we’re doing what we’re doing,” Horton said. “Our goal has always been to inspire people to go into public health. We’d love for them to come back to Grayson County, but as long as they end up serving somewhere in public health, we consider it a win.”
For Hagan, public health offered something she hadn’t found elsewhere — the opportunity to create ripple effects that improve the health and well-being of entire communities.
“I think it’s important to learn about health at a community level,” she said. “You’re not just learning how to treat one person. You’re learning how to impact everyone in a community, which I think is just so amazing and unique.”
Her time at the College of Public Health has given Hagan opportunities to grow both as a student and a leader. One of those experiences came when she moderated the Big Blue Public Health Illumination Seminar Series on Summer Safety and Emergency Preparedness, bringing together public health professionals and community leaders for a discussion on issues affecting Kentucky communities.
Hosting her first public health panel was intimidating, she said, but it quickly became one of her most rewarding experiences.
“Once the conversation got going, I found myself learning just as much as everyone else in the room,” Hagan said. “We had such a great group of panelists, and it really highlighted the work happening in rural communities.”
Among those panelists was Horton, who saw Hagan confidently guide conversations around the very work she’d experienced during her internship.
“To see her take what she learned here in Grayson County and then lead a panel discussing those ideas at the university was exciting,” he said. “It’s rewarding because it reminds us why we invest in students.”
This summer, Hagan has returned to Grayson County for her fieldwork portion of the Rural Public Health Scholars Program, continuing to build experience in environmental health — an area she now hopes to pursue professionally as a registered environmental health specialist.
Long term, she sees herself building a career in rural public health.
“I like being on the go,” Hagan said. “I like being out in the community, doing site visits, talking with people and making a difference.”
For Horton, that commitment reflects something deeper than career ambition.
“It takes a certain heart to stay in rural public health,” he said. “There are opportunities to go elsewhere, but people who choose rural communities do it because they want to serve. Hollie has that same heart.”
Looking back, Hagan never expected a high school job-shadowing experience and a food pantry volunteer position would lead her to public health. Now, she hopes other students discover the field just as she did.
“If you want to have a larger impact, come to the College of Public Health,” she said. “You’ll learn how to improve the health of an entire community.”
For Hagan, that community has always been Grayson County—and she hopes one day to return home and help it thrive.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) – The Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet has released new information regarding the release of the man convicted in the death of Logan Tipton.
Ronald Exantus, 42, will be released from the Kentucky State Reformatory on July 29. Still, before that, he may be subject to involuntary hospitalization due to his not being found guilty by reason of insanity on one count of murder and one count of burglary.
According to a letter sent on June 5 by the cabinet to Chief Circuit Court Judge Jeremy Mattox, Commonwealth’s Attorney Kelli Kearney, and Department of Public Advocacy Directing Attorney Josh Miller, the court has the opportunity to begin involuntary hospitalization proceedings against Exantus, as mentioned in the judgment against him.
READ THE LETTER BELOW
Per Kentucky law, when a defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity, the court shall order an involuntary hospitalization; the court may also order a 10-day detention period to allow proceedings to be initiated.
The cabinet states in the letter that it does not have the authority to initiate the proceedings because Exantus was found guility but mentally on three counts of assault.
WKYT has reached out to the Woodford County Commonwealth’s Attorney and the Department of Public Advocacy to ask whether involuntary hospitalization procedures are being initiated in this case. We have yet to hear back.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Kentucky state lawmakers held a town hall Wednesday night at the South Central Regional Library in south Louisville to hear directly from residents about concerns over hyperscale AI data centers — one of several public meetings on the issue in recent months, but the first organized by legislators themselves.
State senators and representatives convened the meeting on their own time, during the legislative off-season, ahead of January’s session.
“This is a time to bring people together, allow community to have their voice heard, and us take that information back so when it does come time for January, we have the right information in order to create policy that is going to be good for our constituents,” said Sen. Keturah Herron.
Residents, advocates, and organizers packed the library to raise concerns about energy demand, water use, noise, transparency, and whether costs would be passed to everyday utility customers.
Rep. Lisa Wellner cautioned that the legislative fight ahead would be difficult.
“The utilities lobby is very, very powerful in Frankfort…These are going to be the same powerful moneyed forces we’re going to be up against with these hyperscale data centers,” Wellner said.
Sen. Gary Clemons, a 30-year chemical industry veteran, drew a comparison between the potential impact of AI data centers and the effects of factories already bordering some Louisville neighborhoods.
“I negotiate with multi-million, billion dollar companies every day. I’m ready to go toe-to-toe with them now, if we’re ready to do it,” Clemons said.
U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey also attended the meeting.
“I am sick and tired and done with out-of-state corporations coming into our state, our home, our community — and using our resources, wasting and exploiting our people for their gain,” McGarvey said.
Attendee Virginia Bush, who came with a list of concerns about the city’s draft regulations, said halting data centers entirely was not realistic but that inaction was not an option.
“We know it’s not realistic to stop all of them, because people use the data in their everyday life…but they need to be regulated so that these things aren’t causing damage to the communities and to the environment,” Bush said.
Copyright 2026 WAVE. All rights reserved.
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