On the night of April 23, 1986, Carlos Kearns, a 71-year-old retired Air Force veteran from Lexington, Kentucky, was killed as part of a moving, multi-site killing spree that left five people dead. Carlos and his wife Virginia were visited that evening by acquaintances LaFonda Fay Foster and Tina Hickey Powell, who were intoxicated and using cocaine and asked Carlos to write a check. Carlos, Virginia, caregiver Trudy Harrell, neighbor Jimmy Roger Keene, and Keene’s friend Theodore Sweet all ended up in the Kearns’ car for an errand that turned violent.

Bodies were discovered that night at three locations: Harrell in a shopping center parking lot, Virginia Kearns in an alley, and Carlos Kearns, Keene, and Sweet around a burned-out family car off Mount Tabor Road. Victims bore multiple stab and gunshot wounds, had throats cut, and showed tire marks consistent with being run over; Carlos was found alive but died at Humana Hospital-Lexington shortly after being brought in. Foster and Powell were arrested at the hospital later that night and eventually charged in the murders; they entered not-guilty pleas on April 25.

Does anyone have memories of the southeast Lexington neighborhoods or the Kearns family that could shed light on that night?