On October 1, 1973, Reverend John Kirtley Barnes, 47, his 16-year-old daughter Francine, and his 14-year-old son John E. Barnes were shot and killed in their Lexington, Kentucky, home. The three bodies were found together in a bathroom. At the time, Rev. Barnes’s wife was away at a church convention.

The killings occurred after two federal inmates, William Sloan and Wilmer Scott, escaped custody in Lexington. The pair carjacked a woman, stole a rifle from her home, then went to the Barnes residence and carried out the murders. Sloan and Scott fled in the family car and drove about 80 miles to Falmouth, Kentucky, where they committed further murders at a motel before being taken into custody.

The case drew intense attention because of the escape, the violence of the attacks, and the distance the pair traveled before their arrest.