Tag Archives: #Lexington

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Journalism differences between the Lexington Herald-Leader and Philadelphia Inquirer. ** Updated! ** When a poor newspaper outclasses a wealthy one

The First Street Journal has twice reported on the mass shooting in Charles Young Park in Lexington, Kentucky. We also noted the murder of a 78-year-old man in North Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.

But there’s a significant difference in coverage between two newspapers to which we subscribe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Lexington Herald-Leader. The Lexington newspaper is, to put it frankly, dying. Staff have been cut, there have been three General Managers in just a few years, and the paper, which once covered most of eastern and southeastern Kentucky, is a mere shadow if its former self, almost entirely restricted to Lexington now, and print publishing only thrice a week. Continue reading →

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! ** Updated! ** At some point it has to be asked: how stupid can people be?

The Lexington Police went from saying Sunday morning that they “have no updates” on the mass shooting at Charles Young Park to the (alleged) shooter being in jail Sunday evening. I suppose that’s the kind of thing the police do to not alert the suspect that they are hot on his heels.

18-year-old arrested, charged with murder and assault after shooting at Lexington park

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Monday, August 17, 2026 | 4:34 AM EDT | Updated: 9:09 AM EDT

An 18-year-old man was arrested Sunday and charged with killing one and injuring four in a mass shooting, according to the Lexington Police Department.

No, of course the Lexington Herald-Leader did not publish the suspect’s mugshot, but WLKY did, and one of my electronic friends tweeted it out to the world. Continue reading →

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Deonte Demarcus Carter ain’t in too big a heap o’ trouble

Sadly, my usual title for these articles, “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!” doesn’t really apply to Deonte Demarcus Carter, because he’s in far less trouble than he should be for killing two men.

Mother says she was failed by KY courts after man gets 10 years in 2 killings

Deonte Demarcus Carter, mugshot via Kentucky Online Offenders Lookup, and is a public record.

By Taylor Six | December 26, 2025 5:00 AMCristina Sandusky feels failed by the Fayette County justice system.

Deonte Demarcus Carter was sentenced this month to 10 years in prison for his role in a pair of fatal Lexington shootings that happened 21 days apart. One of those killed her son.

No, of course what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal didn’t publish the killer’s mugshot, but it was easy enough for me to look it up. While the McClatchy Mugshot Policy describes the non-publication of mugshots as meant to protect those accused but not yet convicted of a crime, something which would not apply to Mr Carter, but also frets about “disproportionately harm(ing) people of color.”

Carter pleaded to lesser charges of manslaughter in both cases, and Judge Julie Muth Goodman sentenced him to a total of 15 years: two 10-year sentences, to be served simultaneously, for the killings, and five years for criminal facilitation to robbery.

The charges were reduced as part of a plea negotiations made with prosecutors, who felt they didn’t have enough evidence to convict Carter of murder.

In a Dec. 9 interview with the Herald-Leader, Sandusky described different parts of her experience with legal officials as “dismissive,” “disheartening” and “disrespectful.”

“They didn’t do anything for my son,” she said of Fayette County prosecutors. “Just got to have a win under their belt.”

Sadly, if Cristina Sandusky feels failed by the justice system, she would feel even more failed if she chose to use the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup system, to see what Mr Carter is facing. According to the system, Mr Carter’s maximum date of release is December 21, 2036, eleven years from now. However, his potential “good behavior” release date is March 21, 2033, 7¼ years from now, and he will be eligible for parole as early as June 21, 2030, in just 4½ years from now, when he will be just 32 or 33.

From the moment Carter’s case was assigned to Judge Goodman, Sandusky said she was told the judge was not friendly to victims’ families.

Goodman has been criticized, including by Kentucky’s attorney general, for previous rulings deemed lenient. But Sandusky maintained faith the judge would do the right thing.

For the mother, that meant sentencing Carter to the maximum sentence of 20 years — 10 years apiece for the killings, plus some additional time for the robbery charge.

But Sandusky instead described Goodman’s comments in the courtroom as “more sympathetic to the defense.”

“She was nasty and dismissive,” Sandusky said. “She didn’t look at me one time.”

I would suspect that Her Honor was at least slightly ashamed of what she was about to do, but to be ashamed requires a sense of shame, and too-lenient judges have none.

Goodman lauded Carter and said the justice system had failed him throughout his youth, Sandusky recalled.

The judge “lauded” Mr Carter, a man who killed two people? “(T)he justice system had failed him throughout his youth”? How does that excuse him murdering two people?

Judge Julie Muth Goodman, from 2022 Kentucky Voter Guide.

So, who is Judge Julie Muth Goodman? The 2022 Kentucky Voter Guide gave the Her Honor the opportunity to post a campaign biography, as well as answer a couple of questions:

What do you see as your primary responsibilities and duties if elected to this office?

My primary responsibilities are to enforce our laws and by doing so make sure our community is the safest and fairest possible.

I will admit to not seeing how a sentence which could have a two-time murderer to possibly be back on the streets in just 4½ years, still at a young age, as “mak(ing) sure our community is the safest and fairest possible.”

What are your views on whether the court, as a whole, deals effectively with racial bias? What could improve that?

Unfortunately I do not believe that the Court system or our community always effectively addresses racial bias. I have effectively worked with the Administrative Office of the Courts to mandate that the county attorney’s diversion program which often denied people of color the opportunity to participate because the office inappropriately used Juvenile records which are adjudications and confidential to deny people of color access to the program and to also require that the program use a sliding scale so that all eligible people can afford to participate. By making these changes more people of color have been given the same access to the program as others.

Translation: she’s going to give defendants “of color” a real break, or at least she certainly did for Mr Carter. Even with the Alford plea, she could have sentenced him to 25 years in the state penitentiary — two consecutive ten-year sentences for manslaughter plus five years for the robbery — but chose to give him an extreme break. It should be noted that both of the men Mr Carter killed were black; do black lives not really matter to Judge Goodman?

Of course, Kobby Martin and Devon Sandusky are both stone-cold graveyard dead, pushing up daisies for four years now, so what’s the point of locking up their killer for 25 years; it won’t bring Messrs Martin and Sandusky back to life, will it? Just because Mr Carter is a ‘persistent felon,’ as described under Kentucky law, but not prosecuted this time as part of the plea deal, doesn’t mean that he won’t straighten up and fly right after this prison term, does it? And if Mr Carter kills someone else after he gets out of prison, whenever that is, it won’t be Judge Goodman’s fault in the slightest, will it?

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! * Updated! * Stupid is as stupid does.

Kevin Lentz, photo by Fayette
County Detention Center, and is a public record.</span<

As we are all aware, the teachers unions in our country, including the Fayette County Education Association, have nothing but the best of intentions when it comes to students in our public schools. Nothing, nothing! can stop them in the pursuit of a top notch education for students!

Lexington high school teacher charged with 17 sexual offenses involving minors

by Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Tuesday, August 8, 2023 | 4:01 PM EDT | Updated: 5:32 PM EDT

A Lexington teacher charged with multiple counts of sexual offenses involving minors was placed on leave by the Fayette County district Tuesday, according to officials and records.

Kevin Lentz was an English teacher at Henry Clay High School, Fayette County Public Schools spokesperson Dia Davidson Smith told the Herald-Leader.

The 49-year-old Mr Lentz faces these charges:

  • KRS §531.310(2)(b), 7 counts: Use of a minor in a sexual performance, which is a Class B felony if the minor us under 16 years of age. Under KRS §532.060(2)(b), the sentence for a Class B felony is imprisonment “not less than ten (10) years nor more than twenty (20) years”. The sentence shall include an additional five (5) year period of postincarceration supervision which shall be added to the maximum sentence rendered for the offense.
  • KRS §531.030(2), 10 counts: Distribution of obscene matters to minors, which is a Class A misdemeanor if a first offense, and which is how Mr Lentz is charged. Under KRS §532.090(1), the sentence for a Class A misdemeanor shall not exceed twelve (12) months.
  • KRS §524.100, 6 counts: Tampering with physical evidence, which is a Class D felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(d), the sentence for a Class D felony is imprisonment “not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years.”

The charge of tampering with physical evidence requires that the accused believes “that an official proceeding is pending or may be instituted,” so to be guilty of this, Mr Lentz had to know that the police suspected him of the other offenses, that he knew the authorities were closing in.

Mr Lentz has been employed by the Fayette County public schools for 18 years, since August 11, 2005, which leads me to wonder: is this something he (allegedly) recently started, or has this been going on for years and years?

Public school teachers are (supposedly) not stupid, and Fayette County requires that teachers of Mr Lentz’s seniority have attained a Master’s degree. If you are a teacher, you just can’t not know that this kind of thing means a very long and unpleasant stay in the state penitentiary. As Leroy Jethro Gibbs said, to some college students he was interrogating, “Believe me, son, you will not do well in prison.” Just how can someone be that stupid?

These are the kinds of charges that the Commonwealth’s Attorney should not allow to be the subject of any lenient plea bargain; if convicted of use of a minor under 16 in a sexual performance, he should get the maximum sentence of twenty years, which will almost certainly be run concurrently rather than consecutively, as I would prefer — keep him locked up for 140 years! — which would keep him in prison until he’s 69 years old, something he might not survive anyway.
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Update! 11:05 AM EDT

I had wondered, even though I didn’t include it in my original, which was posted at 8:47 AM, whether Mr Lentz’s alleged victims were male or female, since Mrs Spears’ original never mentioned the sex of the victim or victims at all. Now, we know.

Henry Clay teacher exchanged obscene photos in texts with 9-year-old boy, citation alleges

by Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Wednesday, August 9, 2023 | 9:24 AM EDT | Updated: 9:59 AM EDT

A Henry Clay High School teacher induced a 9-year-old boy to send photos of his genitals in a text and also sent the boy adult pornography, a police citation alleges.

Kevin Lentz, 49, asked the boy to delete the conversations “so his parents wouldn’t know,” according to the Lexington Police Department citation. Lentz reportedly sent the child more than 10 images of pornography.

The incident occurred in July, the citation said.

There’s more at the Lexington Herald-Leader original.

Yeah, Mr Lentz, if convicted, will not do well in prison.

More, while part of Mrs Spears original that I did not quote stated that the county schools’ spokeswoman simply referred reporters to the police as far as to whether the alleged victim was a Henry Clay High School student, if he is a nine-year-old boy, the victim is too young to have been in high school. It turns out that he was also a church ‘youth volunteer,’ and though Mrs Spears did not identify at which church it was, it has been reported elsewhere that it was at Lexington’s Faith Lutheran Church.

Fayette District Judge Lindsay Thurston set a $50,000 bond and ordered Lentz to not have contact with minor children as a condition of his release, according to court documents. He remained in the Fayette Detention Center Wednesday morning.

Mr Lentz is innocent until proven guilty, so a reasonable bail amount had to be set; In Kentucky, only those accused of murder can be denied bail. Now that this information has been exposed, I suspect that Mr Lentz time at the Fayette County Detention Center will be disagreeable if he doesn’t make bail quickly.

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Life is cheap in Lexington!

Axel Ndagijimana, photo via WKYT-TV.

On May 7, 2021, Axel Ndagijimana, then 21-years-old, was driving at nearly 80 MPH on West High Street, between Rupp Arena and Oliver Lewis Boulevard, when he lost control of his vehicle and ran off the right shoulder into a utility pole. There are warning signs in the area of an upcoming narrow bend to the left. Ralph Hirwa, aged 20 years, his passenger, never got the opportunity to turn 21.

Man charged in a deadly Lexington crash gets probation after pleading guilty

by Taylor Six | Monday, July 24, 2023 | 11:54 AM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 | 6:56 AM EDT

A man previously charged with second-degree manslaughter for his involvement in a deadly car crash has received three years of probation after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

Axel Ndagijimana, 24, of Lexington, was arrested and charged in June 2021 after a passenger in his car died from injuries in a crash on West High Street. Ndagijimana’s was driving “at a high rate of speed” west on High Street before Oliver Lewis Way when he lost control and the vehicle ran off the right shoulder into a utility pole, police said. The crash killed 20-year-old Ralph Hirwa.

Ndagijimana was accused of driving more than 80 mph in a 25 mph zone at the time of the crash, and a blood test taken after the crash showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.159, a detective testified previously. The legal limit in Kentucky is 0.08.

His attorney, Bradley Clark, said his client made a “monumental error in judgment” by deciding to drive after drinking. Clark wrote that the death of Hirwa was a tragedy, and Ndagijimana had made amends to the victim’s family.

So, he was drunk as a skunk, with a BAC of twice the legal limit at however long after the accident the test was taken, yet driving anyway, in an area with narrow streets, at over 80 miles per hour. Sounds like an open-and-shut case to me!

Mr Ndagijimana was initially charged with KRS §507.040, manslaughter in the second degree, a Class C Felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(c), a Class C Felony is punishable by “not less than five (5) years nor more than ten (10) years” in prison.

But Mr Ndagijimana was allowed to plead down to KRS §507.050, reckless homicide, which is a Class D Felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(d), a Class D Felony is punishable by “not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years” behind bars.

In other words, Mr Ndagijimana was already given one break, a maximum sentence of five years.

Clark asked that Ndagijimana get probation. He said Ndagijimana had a low risk for reoffending and was in the United States on a student visa. If he were imprisoned, he’d be deported back to Rwanda, which he fled a decade ago amid civil war, Clark said in court documents.

Really? The Rwandan civil war ended in 1994, which is before Mr Ndagijimana was even born. From Wikipedia:

Within Rwanda, a period of reconciliation and justice began, with the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the reintroduction of Gacaca, a traditional village court system. Since 2000 Rwanda’s economy, tourist numbers, and Human Development Index have grown rapidly; between 2006 and 2011 the poverty rate reduced from 57% to 45%, while life expectancy rose from 46.6 years in 2000 to 65.4 years in 2021.

The United States Department of State Travel Advisory for Rwanda, dated October 22, 2022 and not subsequently updated, is set at Level One: Exercise Normal Precautions, noting only border area conflicts in the areas near Barundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Reporter Taylor Six’s report does not make it perfectly clear, but at least from the quoted paragraph, it would seem as though Mr Ndagijimana’s attorney, Bradley Clark, misrepresented the situation.

On Friday, Fayette Circuit Judge Kimberly Bunnell sentenced Ndagijimana to two and a half years in prison for an amended charge of reckless homicide, but probated the sentence for three years. He will be out of custody, but could be forced to serve the prison sentence if he violates his probation terms.

Ndagijimana was also convicted of driving under the influence, and was ordered to pay fines, according to the Fayette Commonwealth Attorney’s Office.

Not mentioned in the Lexington Herald-Leader’s story, but included in WKYT-TV’s version, Mr Ndagijimana will have to serve a whopping 30 days in jail.

And that’s it: 30 days behind bars for driving drunk and killing somebody.

But, of course, Mr Ndagijimana did say that he was very, very sorry!

“It is essential to emphasize that Axel has not shied away from his responsibility for the incident,” Clark wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “He stands before this court, acknowledging his error, not seeking to absolve himself of guilt, but pleading guilty to his charge. His acceptance of culpability is a testament to his remorse and personal integrity, even amidst the profound grief and regret that weigh heavily upon him.”

Does that make Mr Hirwa somehow less dead?

Is this justice?

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Killington: Lexington sets a new homicide record

Yeah, it’s true, I concentrate more on homicides in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia than Lexington, the closest large city to me, the city in which I lived from 1971 through 1984, and the city in which my daughters live, but the City of Brotherly Love didn’t set a new homicide record in 2022, while Lexington did.

Coroner releases name of man killed in Bradley Court shooting that left 2 others injured

by Karla Ward | Friday, December 30, 2022 | 9:47 PM EST | Updated: Saturday, December 31, 2022 | 12:23 PM EST

The Fayette County coroner has identified a man who died after being shot in Lexington late Friday.

Bradley Court, from Google Streetscapes September 2022. This is not the murder scene. Click to enlarge.

Tyron Shaw, 21, of Lexington, was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m. as a result of the shooting on the 400 block of Bradley Court, the coroner said in a news release Saturday.

Lexington police who were dispatched to a call about an assault on Bradley Court, off Georgetown Street near Price Road, Friday night said they found one person dead and two injured.

Police said the three male victims were on the sidewalk suffering from gunshot wounds when they arrived at about 7:20 p.m.

Shaw was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other two people who were shot were taken to a local hospital. One had life-threatening injuries. The other victim’s injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, police said in a news release.

There’s more at the original, but Mr Shaw was the 44th person murdered in Lexington in 2022. The previous record, 37 homicides, was set in 2021. That’s an 18.92% increase.

Population guesstimates for Lexington-Fayette County — and the entire county is under the unified Lexington-Fayette Urban-County Government — range pretty widely, from the Census Bureau’s 321,793 in 2021, to as high as 346,663 in 2022 by the World Population Review. Using the extremes of those numbers, 44 murders works out to a homicide rate of between 12.69 per 100,000 population and 13.67. That’s nowhere near as bad as St Louis, with 198 homicides in 2022, according to the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department. With a guesstimated population of 293,310, that works out to a homicide rate of 67.51, while Philly’s 516 murders and population guesstimate of 1,576,251 works out to 32.74 per 100,000.

But with ‘just’ 34 homicides in 2020, and a population of 322,570, the homicide rate was a significantly lower 10.54. Something ain’t right in Lexington!

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What is he thinking right now? I’d bet he isn’t thinking, “Hey, I sure got around those gun control laws, didn’t I?”

Stephon Henderson. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Meet Stephon Henderson. Mr Henderson, 59, allegedly shot and killed Talina Henderson, 47, his wife, at a residence in the 2800 block of Bay Colony Lane. Mrs Henderson was shot “multiple times,” which tells us that this was no accident. This was Lexington’s record-breaking 41st murder of the year; the previous record of 37 was set in 2021.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader and Fayette County Detention Center records, Mr Henderson was charged with murder (domestic violence), violation of an emergency protection order/domestic violence order, and possession of a handgun by a previously convicted felon.

Now, you would think that any person with an IQ above room temperature who was the subject of a domestic violence protection order would be smart enough to not have a handgun. You would think that any such person who is a previously convicted felon would be smart enough to realize that possession of a handgun, a violation of KRS §527.020 (2)(a), is a Class C felony, punishable by a minimum of five and maximum of ten years in the state penitentiary under KRS §532.060, even if he never uses it, and the existence of a protection order could easily result in the police searching his home.

Bay Colony Lane, near Masterson Station Park in Lexington is hardly a bad area. It’s something of a cookie-cutter development, of decent single-family homes with actual front and back yards. While Zillow shows no homes currently for sale on Bay Colony Lane itself, 2657 Wigginton Point, a couple of streets away in the same development, is a three bedroom, three bath, 2,056 ft², built in 2020, very similar home listed for $327,900. There is a lot of new development in that area off of Leestown Road. The neighborhood is neat, clean, racially integrated, and not run-down at all.  Simply put, there was no particular self-defense need for Mr Henderson to be packing.

This tells me of just how ridiculous it is for the left to tell us we need more gun control laws. Mr Henderson — assuming that he is guilty of the charges — was obviously able to obtain a handgun, despite being legally barred from buying one. More, he knew that it was illegal for him to own one, yet he chose to do so anyway. Then, after doing something — the newspaper does not tell us what it was — to cause his wife to seek an emergency protection order, he still kept the gun, even knowing that the police could come at any time and search his residence for a weapon, and knowing that simple possession of the weapon was enough to send him back to the big house for five to ten years. All of those reasons not to have a firearm, and he chose to have one anyway.

He was subject to a restraining order, but he was near his wife anyway. I guess that piece of paper didn’t do very much to defend her.

Mr Henderson is 59 years old, and the possible sentences for murder in the Bluegrass State include death, life in prison without the possibility of parole, 25 years to life, or a 20-to-50-year sentence. If convicted of murder, there is no way Mr Henderson would be out of jail until he’s 79 years old, and possibly not until he’s stone-cold graveyard dead. He threw the rest of his miserable life away.

And for what? Sometimes I fantasize about what other people can be thinking. As he sits in his cell, is he thinking, “Damn, I sure showed her!“, or is it more probable that he’s thinking, “Boy, did I f(ornicate) up this time”? I’d bet one thing though; I’d bet he isn’t thinking, “Hey, I sure got around those gun control laws, didn’t I?”

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Number 39 for Lexington

Lexington had already won the Gold Medal for Homicides in 2022, so anything else is just padding the record, right? Killing number 39 is being investigated as a homicide, but the Lexington Police Department have not stated definitively that it is.

Updated: Woman found dead of gunshot wound at Lexington home has been identified

by Christopher Leach | Tuesday, October 25, 2022 | 7:04 AM EDT | Updated: 7:54 PM EDT

Lexington police are investigating the city’s 39th homicide this year after a woman was found dead inside a home Tuesday morning.

The Fayette County coroner’s office said Nicole Morton, 33, was pronounced dead at 5:05 a.m. on the 700 block of Maple Avenue.

Lt. Joe Anderson with the Lexington Police Department said officers were called out to the 700 block of Maple at roughly 4 a.m. for reports of gunshots. When officers arrived they found a woman suffering from a gunshot wound inside a home. The woman was declared dead on scene by the Lexington Fire Department.

Anderson did not provide any suspect information and said it’s an active investigation.

The 700 block of Maple Avenue runs between East Loudon Avenue and East 7th Street, and is a neighborhood of early 20th century working-class single-family homes. The home directly across the street is shown on zillow.com as being off the market, with a guesstimated sale value of $112,300, and a rental estimate of $816 per month. The inside photos show a home that has been at least partially remodeled. If I have correctly identified the house, it has a #BlackLivesMatter sign in front according to a Google Maps Streetscape photo, but that does not mean that either the victim or her killer are black; the area is racially integrated, and I have seen #BlackLivesMatter signs on homes occupied by white families in that section of town.

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2022 wins the Gold Medal in Lexington!

2022 has won Lexington’s Gold Medal!

Oh, it was no surprise, given that the city had tied its all-time homicide record on Sunday, September 25. At the time, the city was seeing one murder every 7.24 days, so the fact that it has taken three weeks to reach record-breaking 38 is at least somewhat good news.

Man dies after stabbing on Bryan Avenue; New record for homicides in Lexington

by Karla Ward | Saturday, October 15, 2022 | 12:10 PM EDT | Updated: 8:18 PM EDT

A man died after being found with stab wounds late Friday night.

Lexington police said they were called to the 1000 block of Bryan Avenue to help the Lexington Fire Department with an unresponsive person at 11:43 p.m. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said in a news release Saturday morning.

The Fayette County coroner’s office had not released the victim’s name as of noon Saturday. No arrests have been made in the case.

The homicide means Lexington has officially surpassed its record of 37 homicides set in 2021. The city tied its previous record with the shooting death of Adetokundo Okunoye on Oxford Circle Sept. 25.

The numbers are slightly better. With 37 homicides in 287 days, or one every 7.55 days, Lexington is on track for 48.33 murders in 2022, which is down from the 50.39 I projected three weeks ago.