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By Jillian Ogawa
jogawa@herald-leader.com
PARIS — Daniel Trimble tried to slit his wrists with a razor blade shortly after he was booked at the Bourbon County jail last fall. Jail officials sent Trimble to the Comprehensive Care Center for a mental evaluation, according to documents filed in Bourbon Circuit Court.
David E. Hanna, a clinical psychologist, wrote in a letter to a judge last September that the 28-year-old was a high-risk inmate for suicide. Trimble had been admitted to Eastern State Hospital multiple times, had tried to hang himself at least once, and had paranoid delusions, “believing that guards and police planned to kill him.”
The letter added: “Jail staff should be aware of the possibility that he would use anything he has in his possession as a weapon against himself.”
On Feb. 15, Trimble was found dead in his cell, hanging from a bedsheet.
The circumstances surrounding Trimble’s death are now under investigation by state police, who appear to be focusing on how jail officials handled the case.
Trimble’s family members say they’re troubled by the jail’s actions before and after Trimble’s death.
“When I went out there … for people not even to say ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ and they just look at you and basically throw stuff in your arms and push you out the door; they don’t care, they don’t care about anyone in there,” said Samantha True, 26, Trimble’s sister, who went to the jail after her brother’s death to get his belongings. “And I know that people think people in jail are bad, but people make mistakes and they are human.”
Police have released few details about the investigation, and jail officials will not discuss it.
An affidavit for a search warrant, filed this month in Bourbon District Court, alleges that on the day of Trimble’s death, Jailer Tony Horn asked Chief Deputy Jailer Sandy Dotson to delete an e-mail alerting staff to Trimble’s request for medical care.
The affidavit also alleges Dotson asked a jail deputy to fill out a suicide-watch report after Trimble – who had been booked at the jail since Aug. 7, 2007, on a charge of fourth-degree assault – died.
Trimble’s mother, Charlene Morris, 46, was at times overcome with emotion as she and True talked about her son’s death.
Trimble’s ashes rest in a box on an end table in the living room. His mother plans to put them in an urn in the Paris cemetery when the family is able to afford it.
Trimble was the oldest of three children. He grew up in Paris and liked the outdoors, fishing, and drawing. Morris still has a drawing Trimble made on the back of an envelope: two hands holding a cross with the words “in God’s hands.”
Trimble’s family contacted Michael Cooper, a Louisville attorney, shortly after Trimble died, because “we just want to find out what happened because we think that’s what my brother deserves,” True said.
Cooper said his office has hired a private investigator to look into the case.
“While we had turned up a lot of the information, I think the KSP investigation has really now solidified what occurred at the jail with regards to Daniel’s death,” Cooper said.
Despite warnings that he was a suicide risk, Trimble was placed in an isolated cell with a sheet, Cooper said. He used the sheet to hang himself from a vent, Morris said she was told.
Morris said she was told by a former inmate who was in the cell with her son that the jail could not afford $600 for Trimble’s medication and stopped giving it to him. If his medication was out of balance or denied, Cooper said, it could have led to Trimble’s suicide.
Cooper said he has some of Trimble’s medical records and was still investigating whether Trimble had been denied medication.
Dotson declined to comment through a jail staff member. Horn declined to comment about the investigation, but in a previous interview he told a Herald-Leader reporter, “I’ve done nothing wrong, personally.”
No charges have been filed against anyone at the jail.
Bourbon County Judge-Executive Donnie Foley did not return phone messages.
According to records from the Administrative Office of the Courts, Trimble had an extensive felony and misdemeanor criminal history dating back to 1999. He had been in and out of jail for an array of charges such as domestic violence, alcohol intoxication and drug possession.
Three days before he was found dead, Trimble had been indicted for second-degree assault against another inmate and threatening Judge Vanessa Dickson.
An emergency protective order was filed last October by Morris, who said Trimble threatened her, True and his brother. The three cases were dismissed after his death.
Morris said she believes her son’s criminal and violent past was due to his mental illness. Trimble should have been in a hospital to get the help that he needed, she said.
“If he took his medicine, he wouldn’t have done the things he done,” Morris said.
Despite her brother’s record, True said, “I just want them to know that my brother was not a bad person.”
“He made mistakes and, yes, he was in jail, but everyone is human and everybody makes mistakes … who is to say that he wasn’t going to change his life?” she said. “We’ll never know because he’s not here with us. They took that from us.”
A former corrections officer at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington was sentenced Tuesday by a federal judge to six months in prison and ordered to perform 180 hours of community service for sexually abusing an inmate under his ward.
Hector Antonio Abelar, 28, of Nicholasville, pleaded guilty in May to charges that he repeatedly had sex with a ward from January to May 2007, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lexington. Abelar will be required to register as a sex offender.
Abelar will be eligible for parole after serving 85 percent of his sentence.
The Associated Press
A western Kentucky teenager has been charged with manslaughter in the death of his younger friend.
The Paducah Sun reports that 17-year-old Adam Steven Hogarty of Mayfield died Monday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
He had been taken there Saturday after his grandmother found him unconscious in his bed.
Police arrested 18-year-old Ethan Edwards after they learned Hogarty had apparently drunk a mixture containing codeine and morphine.
Authorities accuse Edwards of supplying the drugs.
Graves County sheriff’s investigators upgraded the charges against him within minutes of learning of Hogarty’s death on Monday afternoon.
The Associated Press
A western Kentucky police officer has been indicted on a charge of reckless homicide.
The Paducah Sun reports that a Calloway County grand jury returned an indictment Monday against 29-year-old Murray police officer John Cooper. The charge stems from a March 18 wreck in which 68-year-old Ray Walker of Murray died.
The accident happened as Cooper was responding to a burglar alarm and hit Walker’s vehicle in the driver’s side. State police have said that Cooper’s lights and siren were on.
Police Chief Ken Claud declined to comment on whether Cooper would face internal disciplinary action.
Cooper is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 8.
By Jim Warren
A Lexington bank unexpectedly opened a little early Tuesday morning.
Police said a collision between two vehicles sent a car crashing into the Bank of the Bluegrass on East High Street, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the brick building.
(Photo by Charles Bertram) Delbert Moore, with Apple Contracting, cleaned up Bank of The Bluegrass, at the corner of East High Sreet and South Limestone in Lexington, after a car hit the building.
The crash occurred about 1 a.m., officers said.
According to initial reports, a car was traveling the wrong way on East High Street when it collided with another vehicle at the intersection of South Limestone.
One car then crashed into the side of the bank building.
No one was injured, and Bank of the Bluegrass officials said the bank would be open for business later Tuesday morning.
By Bill Estep
bestep@herald-leader.com
Police didn’t have to look for some Knox County drug suspects during a roundup Monday. Several turned themselves in early.
A grand jury indicted 23 people in a five-month investigation Friday. The names of those indicted were read in open court, a standard way to handle grand-jury returns.
What happened next wasn’t exactly standard, though. According to some of those indicted, employees at the courthouse called to let them know they’d been charged, said Dan Smoot, law enforcement director with Operation UNITE.
Some suspects apparently left town. Others came to the courthouse to post bond before being arrested.
By late Monday afternoon, 11 people had been arrested in the case. Of those, seven had turned themselves in, said Karen Engle, president and CEO of UNITE.
That meant police couldn’t look for evidence during surprise searches at their homes or try to interview people during searches to get additional information.
Having suspected drug dealers know police were likely coming for them also was potentially dangerous to officers, Engle said.
“It’s very disappointing that this information was made available ahead of time,” she said.
Police will consider changes for potential future roundups.
By Cassondra Kirby-Mullins
ckirby@herald-leader.com
HARLAN — A felony sex charge has been dismissed against Otis “Bullman” Hensley Jr., a two-time candidate for governor who was arrested after he offered to trade “a good fattening hog” for two female children in a supermarket.
Otis Hensley Jr.
Although Hensley does have a pet pig, he said he was joking when he made the statement to the aunt of a 13-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister while shopping at Don’s Supersaver in Harlan County.
“I was trying to be friendly,” he said.
Hensley said the phrase has historically been used in Eastern Kentucky as a way of complimenting someone’s children.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard him say that to people,” Hensley’s wife, Mae, said Monday. “He won’t say it anymore, I can tell you that.”
When he realized the family was offended, Hensley said he repeatedly tried to apologize. He also attempted to explain the misunderstanding to the Harlan County attorney’s office, where the girls’ father went to press charges.
“They wouldn’t listen,” said Hensley, 52, who was arrested Aug. 18 and charged with first-degree attempted unlawful transaction with a minor.
Hensley spent three days at the Harlan County jail before his son paid the $15,000 cash bond to get him out.
In Harlan District Court Monday, prosecutor J.D. Smith, an assistant commonwealth’s attorney, acknowledged that authorities believe Hensley “absolutely meant no harm” by his statement.
“It was a joke to him,” Smith said.
Smith moved to dismiss the charge on the condition that Hensley apologize and agree not to have any contact with the family.
“He may be a good man,” the girls’ father said of Hensley. “I was just protecting my kids. I think everybody would have done the same thing. My kids are my life.”
The father declined to comment to reporters after the hearing. The Herald-Leader typically does not identify victims of alleged sex crimes.
Hensley said he is outraged he spent two nights in jail.
“Anyone can go get a warrant against another person for any reason and have them put in jail,” he said. “That should not be allowed.”
“This has ruined my reputation,” he said. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
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