A house fire in Barbourville, Kentucky, on May 11, 2017, initially appeared to be the primary event. Inside the burned residence, 33-year-old Charles Ashley Phipps was found dead. An autopsy later determined the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the torso, and the investigation was reclassified as a homicide.

For more than a year the case produced no public suspect, but in October 2018 a witness came forward with a detailed account placing Charles’s father, Paul Edward Phipps, at the scene. The witness said Paul had gone next door to retrieve a 9mm pistol, that a physical altercation occurred, and that multiple gunshots were heard during a 15 to 20 minute visit. Not long after, Charles’s house was observed fully engulfed in flames and smoke. A search of Paul Phipps’s home on Dunaway Lane turned up a severely burned 9mm pistol in his bedroom closet.

Police arrested Paul Edward Phipps, then 60, and a Knox County grand jury later indicted him on murder and tampering with physical evidence charges. Does anyone have information about Charles, his life in Barbourville, or the events of May 11, 2017?