One of Lexington’s most prominent unsolved crimes: What happened to Melanie Flynn?
Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
Jan. 26, 1977: Melanie Flynn disappears.
When Melanie moved home to Lexington to live with her parents, she had given up on her dream of becoming a professional singer. Flynn, the daughter of Bobby Flynn, a former state senator and former member of the Urban County Council, was last seen leaving work at the Kentucky High School Athletic Association in Lexington.
She had just moved back to Lexington and it was here that the 24-year-old met Bill Canan and Andrew Thornton, officers with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Police Department’s narcotics division.
Canan and Thornton were in fact leaders of a drug-smuggling operation called “The Company.” Flynn told friends she had fallen in love with Canan and that they had talked about getting married.
Canan didn’t seem to share that view, though. When she disappeared, Canan suggested that she’d left on her own accord. She had told her mother, Ella Richey, she’d be home for dinner at 5:30 p.m., but she never showed.
When she still hadn’t come home two days later, her family filed a missing person report. A week after her disappearance, her car was found in the parking lot of an apartment complex she hadn’t lived in for some time.
While the family searched for her, police said there were numerous reports she’d been seen in Florida. Some speculated that Flynn had learned about Canan and Thornton’s drug operation, and Canan had taken action to silence her.
By August 1977, Flynn’s purse washed up on the shore of the Kentucky River. It would be the last solid piece of evidence surrounding her disappearance. In 1993, George Umstead, a former Lexington police officer, testified that Canan had ordered him to kill Flynn.
Canan was never charged with her disappearance. He was convicted for other charges related to drug-smuggling and witness intimidation and sentenced to prison. In September 2008, he was released. Canan died in March 2020. He was 74 – 50 years older than Flynn was when she disappeared.
In 2019, the Kentucky State Police and Lexington Police searched Murphy’s Landing in Mercer County downstream from where her purse was found, after two men gave police tips about where they could find Flynn’s body. After days of digging, the search turned up nothing.
This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 10:42 PM.
