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.