Just last Thursday we learned that Xavier Hardin, who murdered, oops, sorry, manslaughtered Kenneth Bottoms, Jr, in Fayette Mall would get out in 20 years, maximum^[1]His sentence was 22 years, but he has credit for 619 days already served., when he would still be just 41 years old, because Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn negotiated a plea deal, even though the murder was caught on security cameras. If Miss Red Corn thought she couldn’t win that kind of case at trial, she shouldn’t be a prosecutor.

When Mr Harden gets out of prison, Mr Bottoms will still be stone-cold graveyard dead.

Now we learn that Tonisha Hendrickson, who murdered, oops, sorry, manslaughtered a man, was sentenced to only ten years:

Woman sentenced to 10 years for fatal stabbing committed at Lexington apartments

by Taylor Six | Tuesday, May 31, 2022 | 3:52 PM EDT

Tonisha Hendrickson, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, via Lexington city government, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

A woman charged with a deadly 2017 stabbing was sentenced to 10 years by Fayette Circuit Judge Jeffrey Taylor on Tuesday afternoon.

Tonisha Hendrickson, 31, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $9,400 in restitution for the death of a man named Antwain Hayes, who was 37 at the time of the stabbing. Hendrickson will be credited for time already served in jail, which will reduce her prison time.

Hendrickson was originally charged with murder, but she pleaded guilty to to second-degree manslaughter. Her charge was amended down following mediation in April.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Hendrickson was arrested for the killing of Mr Hayes on September 12, 2017, and though we are not told if she has spent the entire time since her arrest behind bars, if she has, she has already served 1,722 days, or 4¾ years in jail. She could get out in as little as 5¼ more years, when she’ll be just 36 years old.

Mr Hayes will still be pushing up daisies at that time.

The article in what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal^[2]As usual, the Herald-Leader did not print the mugshot of Miss Hendrickson, a convicted killer, but at The First Street Journal, we always do, as long as we can obtain it. does not tell us the circumstances behind the murder of Mr Hayes, though it says that Sherry Russell, a friend of the victim, is “certain drugs had a lot to do with this.”

The obvious question is: just because the murderer, oops, sorry, manslaughterer, may have been messed up on drugs, does that make the killing of Mr Hayes somehow less serious, less important?

As of May 25^th, the Lexington Police listed 21 homicides as having occurred in the city so far this year; Lexington did not reach 21 murders until July 4^th in 2021, a year which set the city’s all time record of 37 killings. There are 47 non-fatal shooting investigations so far this year, which is slightly down from 50 in 2021, but only 10 of which have been cleared by an arrest. The Lexington Police have done better in the homicide investigations, with 13 of the 21 cases having resulted in a arrest of a suspect.

Under KRS §507.020, murder is a capital offense in Kentucky. Under KRS §532.030, the punishment for a capital offense shall be:

• death; or
• imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole; or
• imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole until he has served a minimum of twenty-five (25) years of his sentence; or
• imprisonment for not less than twenty (20) years nor more than fifty (50) years.

The prosecution could have gotten a rather long list of killers treated leniently off the streets for a very long time. The prosecution could have gotten them locked up until they were at least middle-aged, possibly until they were elderly, or even gotten them locked up until they die. The prosecution could have done their duty to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky!

Instead we have a discernible pattern of the prosecution in Fayette County letting criminals, letting killers, off lightly. Eventually this will come back to bite the city, right on the derriere, when one of these released killers kills again.