On January 30, 1992, 40-year-old Powell County Sheriff Steve Lynn Bennett was killed while attempting to serve an arrest warrant at a rural cabin near Stanton in an area called Little Hardwick Creek. Bennett had gone to assist his deputy and brother-in-law, Arthur Clay Briscoe, after Briscoe had encountered resistance earlier that day from the man named on the warrant, Ralph Baze.

When Briscoe first approached the cabin, Baze reportedly met him at the door armed with an SKS assault rifle and refused arrest. Briscoe retreated and returned with Sheriff Bennett; as the officers approached with weapons drawn, Baze opened fire from the cabin. Both Bennett and Briscoe were struck and killed before they could take cover. Baze fled into nearby hills with the officers’ service weapons but was found later that day in Estill County with a gunshot wound and surrendered.

Baze was charged with two counts of capital murder. He was tried in Rowan County; in 1994 a jury convicted him and recommended death, and the judge imposed a death sentence. Was anyone in the area that day aware of activity around Little Hardwick Creek or the cabin that might help clarify the sequence of events?