Kentucky man charged in double murder dies from COVID-19, jail official says
A Kentucky man charged with killing two people has died of COVID-19 complications, according to a Marion County Detention Center official.
Craig Pennington, 56, died Monday at Norton Hospital in Louisville, according to Irvin Mann, chief of security at the Marion County Detention Center. Pennington had been in the hospital since Dec. 11, Mann said. He was at a local hospital in Marion County before being transferred to Norton Hospital on Dec. 26.
Pennington, a Springfield resident, had been in jail since July 2016. He was accused of murdering Crystal Warner, 35, and her boyfriend, Robert Jones, 38. Pennington was 52 at the time. The victims went missing and were presumed dead, Kentucky State Police said at the time.
State police said Pennington rented a cabin from Jones on Texas Mackville Road, East of Springfield. Warner and Jones went to the cabin to discuss the property with Pennington before they disappeared. Relatives of Warner alleged that Pennington was behind on the rent.
State police said they found Jones’ body in Clark County about a month later. Warner was found in January of 2017, according to WLWT, a local NBC affiliate in northern Kentucky, where the couple was from.
Pennington was being held in jail on a $2 million bond, according to court records. In addition to two murder charges, he was also charged with kidnapping, robbery, menacing, theft, terroristic threatening, wanton endangerment, evidence tampering and two counts of corpse abuse, according to court records.
Pennington pleaded not guilty to the murders in 2016. He was scheduled for a pretrial conference on Jan. 15, according to court records.
Pennington was originally taken to the hospital for shortness of breath, Mann said. He tested positive for COVID-19 while hospitalized. Pennington’s last COVID-19 test in jail was three or four weeks before he went to the hospital, Mann said. Pennington tested negative at that time, Mann said. Mann said he wasn’t sure if Pennington had underlying conditions.
There were 10 Marion County inmates infected with COVID-19 as of Tuesday morning, Mann said. They were isolated from the general population, Mann said. The jail had about 215 total inmates. The jail has taken a number of precautions in an effort to control COVID-19, Mann said.
“We do daily temperature checks, all inmates have been given masks to wear, we don’t allow anyone in the jail, there’s no visits,” Mann said. The jail also tests all new inmates every Tuesday, Mann said, and anyone experiencing symptoms gets tested.