On December 30, 2020, 43-year-old Brian Keith Russell was found at his Franklin, Kentucky, home with three gunshot wounds after officers responded to a shots-fired call. He was taken to the Medical Center in Franklin and died later that day. Russell worked as a welder and fabricator at IMS Company, was a member of Halltown General Baptist Church, and was a father to two children, Ilan and Stori.

Investigators reported a romantic entanglement involving Russell’s ex-wife and a man named Freddy Manuel Gonzalez. Authorities say Gonzalez had been in a relationship with the ex-wife that ended in mid-December 2020 and that Gonzalez allegedly threatened Russell with a gun. Text messages from December 29 and 30 show exchanges between Gonzalez and a co-worker, Xavior Caine Posey, in which Gonzalez allegedly offered to pay Posey to kill Russell. A federal grand jury later indicted Gonzalez and Posey on a murder-for-hire charge.

Does anyone in the Franklin area have information about Russell’s last day or about contacts between him, Gonzalez, or Posey?