Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
March 30, 1985
Police find Kentucky man, wife slain in their Carrollton home
By JUDY BRYANT
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- An elderly man and his wife were killed in their Carrollton home late Thursday or early yesterday. But authorities released details of the crime - even to say exactly how the couple died - for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 yesterday morning by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said he went to the couple's home after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
At a news conference last night, Carrollton Police Detective John Booth said both deaths were caused by a sharp instrument. However neither Booth nor Stark would say how the couple died or whether their home had been broken into, or confirm rumors that the residence was ransacked.
Stark said police found "strong physical evidence: at the scene, but he refused to speculate on a motive or suspects.
Booth said Carrollton police, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the county coroner's office and the Kentucky State Police are investigating the killings.
George Nichols, the state medical examiner, was called to the scene yesterday morning, according to Carroll County Coroner James Dunn.
Results of autopsies that Nichols was to perform on the couple were not available last night.
"You must realize that due to the severity of the case and the amount of data . . . we cannot release any information until we get all of the findings," Stark said at last night's news conference.
The slayings stunned residents of the small Ohio River community and created what Mayor Charlie Webster called "a lot of paranoia" among the 4,200 residents.
Although there have been other violent deaths in Carrollton, few residents could recall an incident quite as unsettling as the slaying of the Bickerses.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dunn, a longtime resident who has been coroner since 1980.
In an interview outside the home yesterday afternoon, Dunn said Mrs. Bickerses' body had been found inside the front door of the couple's brick, ranch-stype home. He said Roy Bickers' body was found at the rear door.
While police refused to divulge any details of the crime, Booth and Stark publicly urged area residents to check all doors and windows and not open their doors to anyone without proper indentification.
Neither officer would comment when asked by reporters if the warnings were an indication that the Bickerses had opened the door to their assailants.
Without any obvious motive for the killings, the lack of information apparently worried some neighbors, who speculated that whoever killed the Bickerses might have first tried to enter another home.
"Things like that don't happen in Carrollton, Kentucky," said Debbie Roeder, who lives down the street from the Bickerses.
Several of the Bickerses' neighbors described them as a quiet but friendly couple.
Martha Jackson said Bickers, a retired paving-company employee, was ill with cancer but was gone from home almost daily tending a cattle farm in nearby Madison, Ind.
Mrs. Jackson said Mrs. Bickers was a sturdy woman who would have fought her attackers, if possible.
"If there was any way in the world for her to protect herself, she would have done it," Mrs. Jackson said.
She said she saw Mrs. Bickers walking across the yard from her home to her neighbor's home about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. She said Mrs. Bickers apparently delivering a piece of mail that had been left at the Bickerses' home by mistake.
Alva Mae and Bryant Smith, the next-door neighbors, weren't home when Mrs. Bickers came by. The Smiths said that when they returned home about 8:30 p.m., all of the lights were on inside the Bickers residence.
"We didn't see (Bickers) inside reading his paper as we usually do," Mrs. Smith said. Otherwise, she said, nothing seemed unusual at the house.
Neighbors said the Bickerses often left their front drapes open in the evenings and passers-by could easily have seen inside the house.
Directly across 11th Street from the Bickerses' home is a portion of General Butler State Park.
Police say the Bickerses were last heard from about 9:30 Thursday night. They declined to give a specific time of death.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
April 11, 1985
Man arrested in slayings of couple in Carrollton
By AL CROSS
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- A Boone County man was arraigned on murder charges last night in the slayings of a couple at their home in Carrollton last month.
Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, was arraigned at 3 p.m. at his home on Rogers Lane in Florence, authorities said.
He was being held in the Boone County Jail without bond.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old, wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 a.m. March 29 by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said then that he went to the couple's home at 914 11th St. after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
Carroll County Coroner James Dunn had said that Mrs. Bickers' body was found inside the front door of the couple's home Bickers' body was found at the rear door, Dunn said.
He said last week that they died from numerous cuts and blows to the head and neck from a sharp instrument.
Dunn said two of Mrs. Bickers' fingers were severed, there were cuts on her hands and her body was bruised.
Although there have been other violent death in the city, many residents expresed fear and concern after the slayings.
A local building-supply store had reported that it was doing twice its normal business in such items as dead bolts, security bars and chain locks.
Joe Martin, owner of J & N Sporting Goods, said he had sold about 30 handguns in the seven days after the killings, compared with one or two he normally would have sold in that period.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
The Advocate-Messenger
Danville, Kentucky
April 12, 1985
Jewelry led police to suspect's arrest in murder case
CARROLLTON, Ky. (AP) - A gold and diamond-clustered ring taken from Ruby Bickers led police to the man charged with slaying the Carrollton clerk-treasurer and her elderly husband Roy.
Authorities investigating the double killings that shook this small Ohio River city two weeks ago would say nothing about the case Thursday.
But court records in Boone, Carroll and Grant counties link Mrs. Bickers' ring and murder suspect Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, of Florence, who is in jail and charged with two counts of murder.
Affidavits from state police, one of several agencies that investigated the crime, were used to obtain search warrants.
The affidavit filed by state police Detective Ron Harrison on April 5 says the informant told police Yancey killed the two people inside their Carrollton home and that the murder weapon was at the residence of Kenneth Ashcraft of Williamstown, Ky.
The informant told police that Yancey boasted he had drunk a cup of coffee in the Bickers' home and that he had take the woman's 14-carat, leaf-shaped diamond cluster ring.
District Judge Stan Billingsly of Grant and Carroll counties issued a search warrant for the Ashcraft residence. A similar warrant was issued by Boone District Judge Robert hall for Yancey's Florence apartment.
The bodies of Ruby, 55, and Roy, 70, were discovered March 29. Carrollton City Hall workers became worried when she did not show for work.
The search warrant allowed police to seize the ring, a police scanner, two shotguns, a rifle, Mrs. Bickers purse, a $2 bill with a Carrollton postmark, bloody clothing, and telephone and address records all believed taken from the Bickers.
Yancey pleaded innocent at a rare evening arraignment Wednesday before Billingsley in the Carroll County courthouse.
Yancey's case is expected to be taken to a Carroll County grand jury on Monday by Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman. Billingsley set a preliminary hearing for the following Wednesday in case there is no grand jury action.
Yancey's former co-workers at the Frontier Inn in Florence said they were shocked at the news.
Yancey worked at the Frontier as a cook between Nov. 2, 1984 and Feb. 24. He was replaced when he did not show up for work for about three days, said Mary Chandler, Frontier general manager.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
June 21, 1986
Attorney outlines self-defense strategy for defendant in 2 Carrollton killings
Associated Press
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- The attorney for a former high school honor student charged with the hatchet murders of a Carrollton couple says he will prove the slaying were in self-defense.
Attorney Edward C. Monahan said in his opening statement Thrusday to a Carroll Circuit Court jury that the defense does not dispute that Kevin Fitzgerald, 22 killed the couple.
But Monahan said he will present evidence against the commonwealth's contention that the murders were "intentional, premeditated or planned."
Fitzgerald is on trial for the murder of Ruby Bickers, 55, Carrollton's clerk-treasurer and secretary, and her husband, Roy Bickers, 69. Their bodies were found in their home March 30, 1985.
Monahan said the slaying occured after the three argued about money, specifically $3,300 Fitzgerald owed the couple.
In his opening statement, Monahan said Mrs. Bickers, pistol in hand, ordered Fitzgerald out of the house, and Fitzgerald "reached for an ax in the kitchen and all hell broke out."
In the prosecution's opening statment, Commonwealth's Attorney John Ackman portrayed Fitzgerald as a drug user and dealer who was "desperate for money" when he went tot he Bickers' home.
"Kevin Fitzgerald is a cocaine user and a cocaine seller," Ackman told the jury. "He was desperate for money....He knew they kept cash in their home for emergencies. His motive was greed.
Give me the money or I'll chop you up with a hatchet," Ackman said, giving his version of a Fitzerald exchange with the couple. "And that's exactly what he did. He brutally chopped them up."
Monahan said Fitzgerald, who had been an honor student at Carroll County High School, had turned to drugs --- first marijuana and then cocaine --- after his father died in 1983. He was a student at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond at the time.
"He took it to ease the pressures of his life he couldn't deal with. Also, it was a way to make money."
Ackman said he plans to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald is convicted of murder. A manslaughter conviction carried a 10-20 year prison sentence on each count.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
July 8, 1986
Kevin Fitzgerald given 40 years for ax slaying of couple in Carrollton
By JUDY BRYANT
Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- Despite Kevin Fitzgerald's please for mercy, Carroll Circuit Judge Charles Satterwhite yesterday sentenced the 22-year-old convicted killer to 40 years in prison for the 1985 ax slayings of Roy and Ruby Bickers.
The sentence --- 20 years on each of two first-degree manslaughter convictions, to be served consecutively --- was the maxiumum allowed by law and followed the jury's recommendation. Fitzgerald, who has been in jail for more than a year, will be eligible for parole after serving another seven years.
During yesterday's sentencing hearing, Satterwhite said he could not "think of a more serious crime."
"If the court had the power," Satterwhite said, Fitzgerald would serve the full 40 years.
In a brief statement during the hearing, Fitzgerald said he was sorry for having killed the Bickerses, longtime family friends who had loaned him $3,300 to repay drug-related debts.
Fitzgerald testified during the trial that he went to the Bickerses' home on March 28, 1985, to explain that he could not repay the money. He said he killed them after Mrs. Bickers pointed a gun at him and threatened to tell his mother about the debt and his drug dealings.
Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald was found guilty of murder. But after deliberating more than eight hours on June 26, jurors returned first-degree manslaughter verdicts, indicating they believed Fitzgerald was under extreme emotional disturbance for which there was justification.
Yesterday, Fitzgerald asked Satterwhite to consider the evidence presented during the trial and "the extreme emotions of the evening" the Bickerses died.
Fitzgerald said he wants to become "a worthwhile member of society" and "to put my past failures behind me."
"I ask forgiveness of the Bickerses, my mother's understanding and the court's mercy," Fitzgerald said.
Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman urged Satterwhite to impose the maximum sentence for what he called "one of the most horrible crimes" in Carroll County's history.
After the sentencing Ackman said Fitzgerald was "quite lucky" and had "testified in a way that was helpful to his case." Ackman refused to discuss why he was unable to obtain a murder conviction, except to say that he would not have changed the way he prosecuted the case.
"We take to the jury the facts as we understand them," Ackman said. "That's all we can do."
Only a handful of residence attended the sentencing, far fewer than the crowd that packed the tiny room in Carroll Circuit Court throughout the trial. Many of those who watched the trial had criticized the jury's decision for being too lenient, espcially since Fitzgerald admitted killing the couple.
In court yesterday, Satterwhite said he did not agree witht he public's perception that the manslaughter convictions indicated Fitzgerald was not being adequately punished.
"The jury recognized that two lives were taken," Satterwhite said. Their recommendation that Fitzgerald serve the maxiumum 40 years, Satterwhite added later, was "not an attempt by the jury to be in any way lenient."
Fitzgerald's attorneys, Bette Niemi and Ed Monahan, said they will not appeal. Ms. Niemi said the jury's decision and Satterwhite's sentence accurately reflected the feelings of a cross-section of the community who heard all the evidence in the case.
"The jurors...decided that Kevin did not act in his self-defense that evening; rather they determined that he intentionally killed Ruby and Roy Bickers under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance," Fitzgerald's attorneys said in a written statement.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Louisville, Kentucky
March 30, 1985
Police find Kentucky man, wife slain in their Carrollton home
By JUDY BRYANT
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- An elderly man and his wife were killed in their Carrollton home late Thursday or early yesterday. But authorities released details of the crime - even to say exactly how the couple died - for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 yesterday morning by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said he went to the couple's home after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
At a news conference last night, Carrollton Police Detective John Booth said both deaths were caused by a sharp instrument. However neither Booth nor Stark would say how the couple died or whether their home had been broken into, or confirm rumors that the residence was ransacked.
Stark said police found "strong physical evidence: at the scene, but he refused to speculate on a motive or suspects.
Booth said Carrollton police, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the county coroner's office and the Kentucky State Police are investigating the killings.
George Nichols, the state medical examiner, was called to the scene yesterday morning, according to Carroll County Coroner James Dunn.
Results of autopsies that Nichols was to perform on the couple were not available last night.
"You must realize that due to the severity of the case and the amount of data . . . we cannot release any information until we get all of the findings," Stark said at last night's news conference.
The slayings stunned residents of the small Ohio River community and created what Mayor Charlie Webster called "a lot of paranoia" among the 4,200 residents.
Although there have been other violent deaths in Carrollton, few residents could recall an incident quite as unsettling as the slaying of the Bickerses.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dunn, a longtime resident who has been coroner since 1980.
In an interview outside the home yesterday afternoon, Dunn said Mrs. Bickerses' body had been found inside the front door of the couple's brick, ranch-stype home. He said Roy Bickers' body was found at the rear door.
While police refused to divulge any details of the crime, Booth and Stark publicly urged area residents to check all doors and windows and not open their doors to anyone without proper indentification.
Neither officer would comment when asked by reporters if the warnings were an indication that the Bickerses had opened the door to their assailants.
Without any obvious motive for the killings, the lack of information apparently worried some neighbors, who speculated that whoever killed the Bickerses might have first tried to enter another home.
"Things like that don't happen in Carrollton, Kentucky," said Debbie Roeder, who lives down the street from the Bickerses.
Several of the Bickerses' neighbors described them as a quiet but friendly couple.
Martha Jackson said Bickers, a retired paving-company employee, was ill with cancer but was gone from home almost daily tending a cattle farm in nearby Madison, Ind.
Mrs. Jackson said Mrs. Bickers was a sturdy woman who would have fought her attackers, if possible.
"If there was any way in the world for her to protect herself, she would have done it," Mrs. Jackson said.
She said she saw Mrs. Bickers walking across the yard from her home to her neighbor's home about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. She said Mrs. Bickers apparently delivering a piece of mail that had been left at the Bickerses' home by mistake.
Alva Mae and Bryant Smith, the next-door neighbors, weren't home when Mrs. Bickers came by. The Smiths said that when they returned home about 8:30 p.m., all of the lights were on inside the Bickers residence.
"We didn't see (Bickers) inside reading his paper as we usually do," Mrs. Smith said. Otherwise, she said, nothing seemed unusual at the house.
Neighbors said the Bickerses often left their front drapes open in the evenings and passers-by could easily have seen inside the house.
Directly across 11th Street from the Bickerses' home is a portion of General Butler State Park.
Police say the Bickerses were last heard from about 9:30 Thursday night. They declined to give a specific time of death.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
April 11, 1985
Man arrested in slayings of couple in Carrollton
By AL CROSS
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- A Boone County man was arraigned on murder charges last night in the slayings of a couple at their home in Carrollton last month.
Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, was arraigned at 3 p.m. at his home on Rogers Lane in Florence, authorities said.
He was being held in the Boone County Jail without bond.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old, wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 a.m. March 29 by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said then that he went to the couple's home at 914 11th St. after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
Carroll County Coroner James Dunn had said that Mrs. Bickers' body was found inside the front door of the couple's home Bickers' body was found at the rear door, Dunn said.
He said last week that they died from numerous cuts and blows to the head and neck from a sharp instrument.
Dunn said two of Mrs. Bickers' fingers were severed, there were cuts on her hands and her body was bruised.
Although there have been other violent death in the city, many residents expresed fear and concern after the slayings.
A local building-supply store had reported that it was doing twice its normal business in such items as dead bolts, security bars and chain locks.
Joe Martin, owner of J & N Sporting Goods, said he had sold about 30 handguns in the seven days after the killings, compared with one or two he normally would have sold in that period.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
The Advocate-Messenger
Danville, Kentucky
April 12, 1985
Jewelry led police to suspect's arrest in murder case
CARROLLTON, Ky. (AP) - A gold and diamond-clustered ring taken from Ruby Bickers led police to the man charged with slaying the Carrollton clerk-treasurer and her elderly husband Roy.
Authorities investigating the double killings that shook this small Ohio River city two weeks ago would say nothing about the case Thursday.
But court records in Boone, Carroll and Grant counties link Mrs. Bickers' ring and murder suspect Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, of Florence, who is in jail and charged with two counts of murder.
Affidavits from state police, one of several agencies that investigated the crime, were used to obtain search warrants.
The affidavit filed by state police Detective Ron Harrison on April 5 says the informant told police Yancey killed the two people inside their Carrollton home and that the murder weapon was at the residence of Kenneth Ashcraft of Williamstown, Ky.
The informant told police that Yancey boasted he had drunk a cup of coffee in the Bickers' home and that he had take the woman's 14-carat, leaf-shaped diamond cluster ring.
District Judge Stan Billingsly of Grant and Carroll counties issued a search warrant for the Ashcraft residence. A similar warrant was issued by Boone District Judge Robert hall for Yancey's Florence apartment.
The bodies of Ruby, 55, and Roy, 70, were discovered March 29. Carrollton City Hall workers became worried when she did not show for work.
The search warrant allowed police to seize the ring, a police scanner, two shotguns, a rifle, Mrs. Bickers purse, a $2 bill with a Carrollton postmark, bloody clothing, and telephone and address records all believed taken from the Bickers.
Yancey pleaded innocent at a rare evening arraignment Wednesday before Billingsley in the Carroll County courthouse.
Yancey's case is expected to be taken to a Carroll County grand jury on Monday by Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman. Billingsley set a preliminary hearing for the following Wednesday in case there is no grand jury action.
Yancey's former co-workers at the Frontier Inn in Florence said they were shocked at the news.
Yancey worked at the Frontier as a cook between Nov. 2, 1984 and Feb. 24. He was replaced when he did not show up for work for about three days, said Mary Chandler, Frontier general manager.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
June 21, 1986
Attorney outlines self-defense strategy for defendant in 2 Carrollton killings
Associated Press
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- The attorney for a former high school honor student charged with the hatchet murders of a Carrollton couple says he will prove the slaying were in self-defense.
Attorney Edward C. Monahan said in his opening statement Thrusday to a Carroll Circuit Court jury that the defense does not dispute that Kevin Fitzgerald, 22 killed the couple.
But Monahan said he will present evidence against the commonwealth's contention that the murders were "intentional, premeditated or planned."
Fitzgerald is on trial for the murder of Ruby Bickers, 55, Carrollton's clerk-treasurer and secretary, and her husband, Roy Bickers, 69. Their bodies were found in their home March 30, 1985.
Monahan said the slaying occured after the three argued about money, specifically $3,300 Fitzgerald owed the couple.
In his opening statement, Monahan said Mrs. Bickers, pistol in hand, ordered Fitzgerald out of the house, and Fitzgerald "reached for an ax in the kitchen and all hell broke out."
In the prosecution's opening statment, Commonwealth's Attorney John Ackman portrayed Fitzgerald as a drug user and dealer who was "desperate for money" when he went tot he Bickers' home.
"Kevin Fitzgerald is a cocaine user and a cocaine seller," Ackman told the jury. "He was desperate for money....He knew they kept cash in their home for emergencies. His motive was greed.
Give me the money or I'll chop you up with a hatchet," Ackman said, giving his version of a Fitzerald exchange with the couple. "And that's exactly what he did. He brutally chopped them up."
Monahan said Fitzgerald, who had been an honor student at Carroll County High School, had turned to drugs --- first marijuana and then cocaine --- after his father died in 1983. He was a student at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond at the time.
"He took it to ease the pressures of his life he couldn't deal with. Also, it was a way to make money."
Ackman said he plans to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald is convicted of murder. A manslaughter conviction carried a 10-20 year prison sentence on each count.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
July 8, 1986
Kevin Fitzgerald given 40 years for ax slaying of couple in Carrollton
By JUDY BRYANT
Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- Despite Kevin Fitzgerald's please for mercy, Carroll Circuit Judge Charles Satterwhite yesterday sentenced the 22-year-old convicted killer to 40 years in prison for the 1985 ax slayings of Roy and Ruby Bickers.
The sentence --- 20 years on each of two first-degree manslaughter convictions, to be served consecutively --- was the maxiumum allowed by law and followed the jury's recommendation. Fitzgerald, who has been in jail for more than a year, will be eligible for parole after serving another seven years.
During yesterday's sentencing hearing, Satterwhite said he could not "think of a more serious crime."
"If the court had the power," Satterwhite said, Fitzgerald would serve the full 40 years.
In a brief statement during the hearing, Fitzgerald said he was sorry for having killed the Bickerses, longtime family friends who had loaned him $3,300 to repay drug-related debts.
Fitzgerald testified during the trial that he went to the Bickerses' home on March 28, 1985, to explain that he could not repay the money. He said he killed them after Mrs. Bickers pointed a gun at him and threatened to tell his mother about the debt and his drug dealings.
Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald was found guilty of murder. But after deliberating more than eight hours on June 26, jurors returned first-degree manslaughter verdicts, indicating they believed Fitzgerald was under extreme emotional disturbance for which there was justification.
Yesterday, Fitzgerald asked Satterwhite to consider the evidence presented during the trial and "the extreme emotions of the evening" the Bickerses died.
Fitzgerald said he wants to become "a worthwhile member of society" and "to put my past failures behind me."
"I ask forgiveness of the Bickerses, my mother's understanding and the court's mercy," Fitzgerald said.
Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman urged Satterwhite to impose the maximum sentence for what he called "one of the most horrible crimes" in Carroll County's history.
After the sentencing Ackman said Fitzgerald was "quite lucky" and had "testified in a way that was helpful to his case." Ackman refused to discuss why he was unable to obtain a murder conviction, except to say that he would not have changed the way he prosecuted the case.
"We take to the jury the facts as we understand them," Ackman said. "That's all we can do."
Only a handful of residence attended the sentencing, far fewer than the crowd that packed the tiny room in Carroll Circuit Court throughout the trial. Many of those who watched the trial had criticized the jury's decision for being too lenient, espcially since Fitzgerald admitted killing the couple.
In court yesterday, Satterwhite said he did not agree witht he public's perception that the manslaughter convictions indicated Fitzgerald was not being adequately punished.
"The jury recognized that two lives were taken," Satterwhite said. Their recommendation that Fitzgerald serve the maxiumum 40 years, Satterwhite added later, was "not an attempt by the jury to be in any way lenient."
Fitzgerald's attorneys, Bette Niemi and Ed Monahan, said they will not appeal. Ms. Niemi said the jury's decision and Satterwhite's sentence accurately reflected the feelings of a cross-section of the community who heard all the evidence in the case.
"The jurors...decided that Kevin did not act in his self-defense that evening; rather they determined that he intentionally killed Ruby and Roy Bickers under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance," Fitzgerald's attorneys said in a written statement.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
March 30, 1985
Police find Kentucky man, wife slain in their Carrollton home
By JUDY BRYANT
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- An elderly man and his wife were killed in their Carrollton home late Thursday or early yesterday. But authorities released details of the crime - even to say exactly how the couple died - for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 yesterday morning by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said he went to the couple's home after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
At a news conference last night, Carrollton Police Detective John Booth said both deaths were caused by a sharp instrument. However neither Booth nor Stark would say how the couple died or whether their home had been broken into, or confirm rumors that the residence was ransacked.
Stark said police found "strong physical evidence: at the scene, but he refused to speculate on a motive or suspects.
Booth said Carrollton police, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the county coroner's office and the Kentucky State Police are investigating the killings.
George Nichols, the state medical examiner, was called to the scene yesterday morning, according to Carroll County Coroner James Dunn.
Results of autopsies that Nichols was to perform on the couple were not available last night.
"You must realize that due to the severity of the case and the amount of data . . . we cannot release any information until we get all of the findings," Stark said at last night's news conference.
The slayings stunned residents of the small Ohio River community and created what Mayor Charlie Webster called "a lot of paranoia" among the 4,200 residents.
Although there have been other violent deaths in Carrollton, few residents could recall an incident quite as unsettling as the slaying of the Bickerses.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dunn, a longtime resident who has been coroner since 1980.
In an interview outside the home yesterday afternoon, Dunn said Mrs. Bickerses' body had been found inside the front door of the couple's brick, ranch-stype home. He said Roy Bickers' body was found at the rear door.
While police refused to divulge any details of the crime, Booth and Stark publicly urged area residents to check all doors and windows and not open their doors to anyone without proper indentification.
Neither officer would comment when asked by reporters if the warnings were an indication that the Bickerses had opened the door to their assailants.
Without any obvious motive for the killings, the lack of information apparently worried some neighbors, who speculated that whoever killed the Bickerses might have first tried to enter another home.
"Things like that don't happen in Carrollton, Kentucky," said Debbie Roeder, who lives down the street from the Bickerses.
Several of the Bickerses' neighbors described them as a quiet but friendly couple.
Martha Jackson said Bickers, a retired paving-company employee, was ill with cancer but was gone from home almost daily tending a cattle farm in nearby Madison, Ind.
Mrs. Jackson said Mrs. Bickers was a sturdy woman who would have fought her attackers, if possible.
"If there was any way in the world for her to protect herself, she would have done it," Mrs. Jackson said.
She said she saw Mrs. Bickers walking across the yard from her home to her neighbor's home about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. She said Mrs. Bickers apparently delivering a piece of mail that had been left at the Bickerses' home by mistake.
Alva Mae and Bryant Smith, the next-door neighbors, weren't home when Mrs. Bickers came by. The Smiths said that when they returned home about 8:30 p.m., all of the lights were on inside the Bickers residence.
"We didn't see (Bickers) inside reading his paper as we usually do," Mrs. Smith said. Otherwise, she said, nothing seemed unusual at the house.
Neighbors said the Bickerses often left their front drapes open in the evenings and passers-by could easily have seen inside the house.
Directly across 11th Street from the Bickerses' home is a portion of General Butler State Park.
Police say the Bickerses were last heard from about 9:30 Thursday night. They declined to give a specific time of death.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
April 11, 1985
Man arrested in slayings of couple in Carrollton
By AL CROSS
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- A Boone County man was arraigned on murder charges last night in the slayings of a couple at their home in Carrollton last month.
Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, was arraigned at 3 p.m. at his home on Rogers Lane in Florence, authorities said.
He was being held in the Boone County Jail without bond.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old, wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 a.m. March 29 by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said then that he went to the couple's home at 914 11th St. after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
Carroll County Coroner James Dunn had said that Mrs. Bickers' body was found inside the front door of the couple's home Bickers' body was found at the rear door, Dunn said.
He said last week that they died from numerous cuts and blows to the head and neck from a sharp instrument.
Dunn said two of Mrs. Bickers' fingers were severed, there were cuts on her hands and her body was bruised.
Although there have been other violent death in the city, many residents expresed fear and concern after the slayings.
A local building-supply store had reported that it was doing twice its normal business in such items as dead bolts, security bars and chain locks.
Joe Martin, owner of J & N Sporting Goods, said he had sold about 30 handguns in the seven days after the killings, compared with one or two he normally would have sold in that period.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
The Advocate-Messenger
Danville, Kentucky
April 12, 1985
Jewelry led police to suspect's arrest in murder case
CARROLLTON, Ky. (AP) - A gold and diamond-clustered ring taken from Ruby Bickers led police to the man charged with slaying the Carrollton clerk-treasurer and her elderly husband Roy.
Authorities investigating the double killings that shook this small Ohio River city two weeks ago would say nothing about the case Thursday.
But court records in Boone, Carroll and Grant counties link Mrs. Bickers' ring and murder suspect Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, of Florence, who is in jail and charged with two counts of murder.
Affidavits from state police, one of several agencies that investigated the crime, were used to obtain search warrants.
The affidavit filed by state police Detective Ron Harrison on April 5 says the informant told police Yancey killed the two people inside their Carrollton home and that the murder weapon was at the residence of Kenneth Ashcraft of Williamstown, Ky.
The informant told police that Yancey boasted he had drunk a cup of coffee in the Bickers' home and that he had take the woman's 14-carat, leaf-shaped diamond cluster ring.
District Judge Stan Billingsly of Grant and Carroll counties issued a search warrant for the Ashcraft residence. A similar warrant was issued by Boone District Judge Robert hall for Yancey's Florence apartment.
The bodies of Ruby, 55, and Roy, 70, were discovered March 29. Carrollton City Hall workers became worried when she did not show for work.
The search warrant allowed police to seize the ring, a police scanner, two shotguns, a rifle, Mrs. Bickers purse, a $2 bill with a Carrollton postmark, bloody clothing, and telephone and address records all believed taken from the Bickers.
Yancey pleaded innocent at a rare evening arraignment Wednesday before Billingsley in the Carroll County courthouse.
Yancey's case is expected to be taken to a Carroll County grand jury on Monday by Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman. Billingsley set a preliminary hearing for the following Wednesday in case there is no grand jury action.
Yancey's former co-workers at the Frontier Inn in Florence said they were shocked at the news.
Yancey worked at the Frontier as a cook between Nov. 2, 1984 and Feb. 24. He was replaced when he did not show up for work for about three days, said Mary Chandler, Frontier general manager.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
June 21, 1986
Attorney outlines self-defense strategy for defendant in 2 Carrollton killings
Associated Press
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- The attorney for a former high school honor student charged with the hatchet murders of a Carrollton couple says he will prove the slaying were in self-defense.
Attorney Edward C. Monahan said in his opening statement Thrusday to a Carroll Circuit Court jury that the defense does not dispute that Kevin Fitzgerald, 22 killed the couple.
But Monahan said he will present evidence against the commonwealth's contention that the murders were "intentional, premeditated or planned."
Fitzgerald is on trial for the murder of Ruby Bickers, 55, Carrollton's clerk-treasurer and secretary, and her husband, Roy Bickers, 69. Their bodies were found in their home March 30, 1985.
Monahan said the slaying occured after the three argued about money, specifically $3,300 Fitzgerald owed the couple.
In his opening statement, Monahan said Mrs. Bickers, pistol in hand, ordered Fitzgerald out of the house, and Fitzgerald "reached for an ax in the kitchen and all hell broke out."
In the prosecution's opening statment, Commonwealth's Attorney John Ackman portrayed Fitzgerald as a drug user and dealer who was "desperate for money" when he went tot he Bickers' home.
"Kevin Fitzgerald is a cocaine user and a cocaine seller," Ackman told the jury. "He was desperate for money....He knew they kept cash in their home for emergencies. His motive was greed.
Give me the money or I'll chop you up with a hatchet," Ackman said, giving his version of a Fitzerald exchange with the couple. "And that's exactly what he did. He brutally chopped them up."
Monahan said Fitzgerald, who had been an honor student at Carroll County High School, had turned to drugs --- first marijuana and then cocaine --- after his father died in 1983. He was a student at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond at the time.
"He took it to ease the pressures of his life he couldn't deal with. Also, it was a way to make money."
Ackman said he plans to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald is convicted of murder. A manslaughter conviction carried a 10-20 year prison sentence on each count.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
July 8, 1986
Kevin Fitzgerald given 40 years for ax slaying of couple in Carrollton
By JUDY BRYANT
Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- Despite Kevin Fitzgerald's please for mercy, Carroll Circuit Judge Charles Satterwhite yesterday sentenced the 22-year-old convicted killer to 40 years in prison for the 1985 ax slayings of Roy and Ruby Bickers.
The sentence --- 20 years on each of two first-degree manslaughter convictions, to be served consecutively --- was the maxiumum allowed by law and followed the jury's recommendation. Fitzgerald, who has been in jail for more than a year, will be eligible for parole after serving another seven years.
During yesterday's sentencing hearing, Satterwhite said he could not "think of a more serious crime."
"If the court had the power," Satterwhite said, Fitzgerald would serve the full 40 years.
In a brief statement during the hearing, Fitzgerald said he was sorry for having killed the Bickerses, longtime family friends who had loaned him $3,300 to repay drug-related debts.
Fitzgerald testified during the trial that he went to the Bickerses' home on March 28, 1985, to explain that he could not repay the money. He said he killed them after Mrs. Bickers pointed a gun at him and threatened to tell his mother about the debt and his drug dealings.
Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald was found guilty of murder. But after deliberating more than eight hours on June 26, jurors returned first-degree manslaughter verdicts, indicating they believed Fitzgerald was under extreme emotional disturbance for which there was justification.
Yesterday, Fitzgerald asked Satterwhite to consider the evidence presented during the trial and "the extreme emotions of the evening" the Bickerses died.
Fitzgerald said he wants to become "a worthwhile member of society" and "to put my past failures behind me."
"I ask forgiveness of the Bickerses, my mother's understanding and the court's mercy," Fitzgerald said.
Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman urged Satterwhite to impose the maximum sentence for what he called "one of the most horrible crimes" in Carroll County's history.
After the sentencing Ackman said Fitzgerald was "quite lucky" and had "testified in a way that was helpful to his case." Ackman refused to discuss why he was unable to obtain a murder conviction, except to say that he would not have changed the way he prosecuted the case.
"We take to the jury the facts as we understand them," Ackman said. "That's all we can do."
Only a handful of residence attended the sentencing, far fewer than the crowd that packed the tiny room in Carroll Circuit Court throughout the trial. Many of those who watched the trial had criticized the jury's decision for being too lenient, espcially since Fitzgerald admitted killing the couple.
In court yesterday, Satterwhite said he did not agree witht he public's perception that the manslaughter convictions indicated Fitzgerald was not being adequately punished.
"The jury recognized that two lives were taken," Satterwhite said. Their recommendation that Fitzgerald serve the maxiumum 40 years, Satterwhite added later, was "not an attempt by the jury to be in any way lenient."
Fitzgerald's attorneys, Bette Niemi and Ed Monahan, said they will not appeal. Ms. Niemi said the jury's decision and Satterwhite's sentence accurately reflected the feelings of a cross-section of the community who heard all the evidence in the case.
"The jurors...decided that Kevin did not act in his self-defense that evening; rather they determined that he intentionally killed Ruby and Roy Bickers under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance," Fitzgerald's attorneys said in a written statement.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Louisville, Kentucky
March 30, 1985
Police find Kentucky man, wife slain in their Carrollton home
By JUDY BRYANT
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- An elderly man and his wife were killed in their Carrollton home late Thursday or early yesterday. But authorities released details of the crime - even to say exactly how the couple died - for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 yesterday morning by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said he went to the couple's home after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
At a news conference last night, Carrollton Police Detective John Booth said both deaths were caused by a sharp instrument. However neither Booth nor Stark would say how the couple died or whether their home had been broken into, or confirm rumors that the residence was ransacked.
Stark said police found "strong physical evidence: at the scene, but he refused to speculate on a motive or suspects.
Booth said Carrollton police, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the county coroner's office and the Kentucky State Police are investigating the killings.
George Nichols, the state medical examiner, was called to the scene yesterday morning, according to Carroll County Coroner James Dunn.
Results of autopsies that Nichols was to perform on the couple were not available last night.
"You must realize that due to the severity of the case and the amount of data . . . we cannot release any information until we get all of the findings," Stark said at last night's news conference.
The slayings stunned residents of the small Ohio River community and created what Mayor Charlie Webster called "a lot of paranoia" among the 4,200 residents.
Although there have been other violent deaths in Carrollton, few residents could recall an incident quite as unsettling as the slaying of the Bickerses.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dunn, a longtime resident who has been coroner since 1980.
In an interview outside the home yesterday afternoon, Dunn said Mrs. Bickerses' body had been found inside the front door of the couple's brick, ranch-stype home. He said Roy Bickers' body was found at the rear door.
While police refused to divulge any details of the crime, Booth and Stark publicly urged area residents to check all doors and windows and not open their doors to anyone without proper indentification.
Neither officer would comment when asked by reporters if the warnings were an indication that the Bickerses had opened the door to their assailants.
Without any obvious motive for the killings, the lack of information apparently worried some neighbors, who speculated that whoever killed the Bickerses might have first tried to enter another home.
"Things like that don't happen in Carrollton, Kentucky," said Debbie Roeder, who lives down the street from the Bickerses.
Several of the Bickerses' neighbors described them as a quiet but friendly couple.
Martha Jackson said Bickers, a retired paving-company employee, was ill with cancer but was gone from home almost daily tending a cattle farm in nearby Madison, Ind.
Mrs. Jackson said Mrs. Bickers was a sturdy woman who would have fought her attackers, if possible.
"If there was any way in the world for her to protect herself, she would have done it," Mrs. Jackson said.
She said she saw Mrs. Bickers walking across the yard from her home to her neighbor's home about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. She said Mrs. Bickers apparently delivering a piece of mail that had been left at the Bickerses' home by mistake.
Alva Mae and Bryant Smith, the next-door neighbors, weren't home when Mrs. Bickers came by. The Smiths said that when they returned home about 8:30 p.m., all of the lights were on inside the Bickers residence.
"We didn't see (Bickers) inside reading his paper as we usually do," Mrs. Smith said. Otherwise, she said, nothing seemed unusual at the house.
Neighbors said the Bickerses often left their front drapes open in the evenings and passers-by could easily have seen inside the house.
Directly across 11th Street from the Bickerses' home is a portion of General Butler State Park.
Police say the Bickerses were last heard from about 9:30 Thursday night. They declined to give a specific time of death.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
April 11, 1985
Man arrested in slayings of couple in Carrollton
By AL CROSS
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- A Boone County man was arraigned on murder charges last night in the slayings of a couple at their home in Carrollton last month.
Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, was arraigned at 3 p.m. at his home on Rogers Lane in Florence, authorities said.
He was being held in the Boone County Jail without bond.
The bodies of Roy Bickers, 70, and his 55-year-old, wife, Ruby, were found at 9:30 a.m. March 29 by Carrollton Police Chief Laman Stark.
Stark said then that he went to the couple's home at 914 11th St. after Mrs. Bickers did not show up for her job as clerk-treasurer and secretary for the city.
Carroll County Coroner James Dunn had said that Mrs. Bickers' body was found inside the front door of the couple's home Bickers' body was found at the rear door, Dunn said.
He said last week that they died from numerous cuts and blows to the head and neck from a sharp instrument.
Dunn said two of Mrs. Bickers' fingers were severed, there were cuts on her hands and her body was bruised.
Although there have been other violent death in the city, many residents expresed fear and concern after the slayings.
A local building-supply store had reported that it was doing twice its normal business in such items as dead bolts, security bars and chain locks.
Joe Martin, owner of J & N Sporting Goods, said he had sold about 30 handguns in the seven days after the killings, compared with one or two he normally would have sold in that period.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
The Advocate-Messenger
Danville, Kentucky
April 12, 1985
Jewelry led police to suspect's arrest in murder case
CARROLLTON, Ky. (AP) - A gold and diamond-clustered ring taken from Ruby Bickers led police to the man charged with slaying the Carrollton clerk-treasurer and her elderly husband Roy.
Authorities investigating the double killings that shook this small Ohio River city two weeks ago would say nothing about the case Thursday.
But court records in Boone, Carroll and Grant counties link Mrs. Bickers' ring and murder suspect Gregory Lynn Yancey, 29, of Florence, who is in jail and charged with two counts of murder.
Affidavits from state police, one of several agencies that investigated the crime, were used to obtain search warrants.
The affidavit filed by state police Detective Ron Harrison on April 5 says the informant told police Yancey killed the two people inside their Carrollton home and that the murder weapon was at the residence of Kenneth Ashcraft of Williamstown, Ky.
The informant told police that Yancey boasted he had drunk a cup of coffee in the Bickers' home and that he had take the woman's 14-carat, leaf-shaped diamond cluster ring.
District Judge Stan Billingsly of Grant and Carroll counties issued a search warrant for the Ashcraft residence. A similar warrant was issued by Boone District Judge Robert hall for Yancey's Florence apartment.
The bodies of Ruby, 55, and Roy, 70, were discovered March 29. Carrollton City Hall workers became worried when she did not show for work.
The search warrant allowed police to seize the ring, a police scanner, two shotguns, a rifle, Mrs. Bickers purse, a $2 bill with a Carrollton postmark, bloody clothing, and telephone and address records all believed taken from the Bickers.
Yancey pleaded innocent at a rare evening arraignment Wednesday before Billingsley in the Carroll County courthouse.
Yancey's case is expected to be taken to a Carroll County grand jury on Monday by Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman. Billingsley set a preliminary hearing for the following Wednesday in case there is no grand jury action.
Yancey's former co-workers at the Frontier Inn in Florence said they were shocked at the news.
Yancey worked at the Frontier as a cook between Nov. 2, 1984 and Feb. 24. He was replaced when he did not show up for work for about three days, said Mary Chandler, Frontier general manager.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
June 21, 1986
Attorney outlines self-defense strategy for defendant in 2 Carrollton killings
Associated Press
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- The attorney for a former high school honor student charged with the hatchet murders of a Carrollton couple says he will prove the slaying were in self-defense.
Attorney Edward C. Monahan said in his opening statement Thrusday to a Carroll Circuit Court jury that the defense does not dispute that Kevin Fitzgerald, 22 killed the couple.
But Monahan said he will present evidence against the commonwealth's contention that the murders were "intentional, premeditated or planned."
Fitzgerald is on trial for the murder of Ruby Bickers, 55, Carrollton's clerk-treasurer and secretary, and her husband, Roy Bickers, 69. Their bodies were found in their home March 30, 1985.
Monahan said the slaying occured after the three argued about money, specifically $3,300 Fitzgerald owed the couple.
In his opening statement, Monahan said Mrs. Bickers, pistol in hand, ordered Fitzgerald out of the house, and Fitzgerald "reached for an ax in the kitchen and all hell broke out."
In the prosecution's opening statment, Commonwealth's Attorney John Ackman portrayed Fitzgerald as a drug user and dealer who was "desperate for money" when he went tot he Bickers' home.
"Kevin Fitzgerald is a cocaine user and a cocaine seller," Ackman told the jury. "He was desperate for money....He knew they kept cash in their home for emergencies. His motive was greed.
Give me the money or I'll chop you up with a hatchet," Ackman said, giving his version of a Fitzerald exchange with the couple. "And that's exactly what he did. He brutally chopped them up."
Monahan said Fitzgerald, who had been an honor student at Carroll County High School, had turned to drugs --- first marijuana and then cocaine --- after his father died in 1983. He was a student at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond at the time.
"He took it to ease the pressures of his life he couldn't deal with. Also, it was a way to make money."
Ackman said he plans to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald is convicted of murder. A manslaughter conviction carried a 10-20 year prison sentence on each count.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Courier-Journal
Louisville, Kentucky
July 8, 1986
Kevin Fitzgerald given 40 years for ax slaying of couple in Carrollton
By JUDY BRYANT
Staff Writer
CARROLLTON, Ky. --- Despite Kevin Fitzgerald's please for mercy, Carroll Circuit Judge Charles Satterwhite yesterday sentenced the 22-year-old convicted killer to 40 years in prison for the 1985 ax slayings of Roy and Ruby Bickers.
The sentence --- 20 years on each of two first-degree manslaughter convictions, to be served consecutively --- was the maxiumum allowed by law and followed the jury's recommendation. Fitzgerald, who has been in jail for more than a year, will be eligible for parole after serving another seven years.
During yesterday's sentencing hearing, Satterwhite said he could not "think of a more serious crime."
"If the court had the power," Satterwhite said, Fitzgerald would serve the full 40 years.
In a brief statement during the hearing, Fitzgerald said he was sorry for having killed the Bickerses, longtime family friends who had loaned him $3,300 to repay drug-related debts.
Fitzgerald testified during the trial that he went to the Bickerses' home on March 28, 1985, to explain that he could not repay the money. He said he killed them after Mrs. Bickers pointed a gun at him and threatened to tell his mother about the debt and his drug dealings.
Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty if Fitzgerald was found guilty of murder. But after deliberating more than eight hours on June 26, jurors returned first-degree manslaughter verdicts, indicating they believed Fitzgerald was under extreme emotional disturbance for which there was justification.
Yesterday, Fitzgerald asked Satterwhite to consider the evidence presented during the trial and "the extreme emotions of the evening" the Bickerses died.
Fitzgerald said he wants to become "a worthwhile member of society" and "to put my past failures behind me."
"I ask forgiveness of the Bickerses, my mother's understanding and the court's mercy," Fitzgerald said.
Commonweath's Attorney John Ackman urged Satterwhite to impose the maximum sentence for what he called "one of the most horrible crimes" in Carroll County's history.
After the sentencing Ackman said Fitzgerald was "quite lucky" and had "testified in a way that was helpful to his case." Ackman refused to discuss why he was unable to obtain a murder conviction, except to say that he would not have changed the way he prosecuted the case.
"We take to the jury the facts as we understand them," Ackman said. "That's all we can do."
Only a handful of residence attended the sentencing, far fewer than the crowd that packed the tiny room in Carroll Circuit Court throughout the trial. Many of those who watched the trial had criticized the jury's decision for being too lenient, espcially since Fitzgerald admitted killing the couple.
In court yesterday, Satterwhite said he did not agree witht he public's perception that the manslaughter convictions indicated Fitzgerald was not being adequately punished.
"The jury recognized that two lives were taken," Satterwhite said. Their recommendation that Fitzgerald serve the maxiumum 40 years, Satterwhite added later, was "not an attempt by the jury to be in any way lenient."
Fitzgerald's attorneys, Bette Niemi and Ed Monahan, said they will not appeal. Ms. Niemi said the jury's decision and Satterwhite's sentence accurately reflected the feelings of a cross-section of the community who heard all the evidence in the case.
"The jurors...decided that Kevin did not act in his self-defense that evening; rather they determined that he intentionally killed Ruby and Roy Bickers under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance," Fitzgerald's attorneys said in a written statement.
Transcribed by: GenealogyGirl
Family Members
Spouse
Siblings
