Ex-boyfriend of missing Ky. mom arrested on unrelated charges
A Scott County mother of three has been missing for more than a week, and on Friday her ex-boyfriend was arrested after police said he lied about a shooting that he reported on the same night she disappeared.
Joseph Hicks, 53, of Richmond, was booked into the Scott County Detention Center early Friday on charges of first-degree criminal mischief, falsely reporting an incident and tampering with physical evidence, jail records show.
Hicks had previously been in a relationship with Sheena Baxter, 32, who has been missing since the night of Feb. 14, when she went outside and never returned, said Baxter’s sister, Christa Crumley.
Hicks has not been charged with any crime in connection with Baxter’s disappearance.
On the evening of Feb. 14, Hicks allegedly told Georgetown police that he had been shot during an attempted robbery at Walmart in Georgetown, but police now say he actually was in a semi at Phoenix Transportation just before he drove to a gas station and called police to report being shot, WKYT reported.
Police said Hicks had what appeared to be a gunshot wound on his right wrist, the television station reported.
But no one reported hearing any gunshots near Walmart, and video from the area didn’t show Hicks there, the Georgetown News-Graphic reported.
Police received a tip that led them to the trucking company on Thursday, according to WKYT. There, police said they found a bullet hole that went through the driver’s seat and windshield of the truck.
The News-Graphic reported that investigators found video showing that Hicks was in the big rig at Phoenix eight minutes before he was supposedly shot at Walmart.
Hicks was seen on camera going back to Phoenix Transportation on Sunday with cleaning supplies “to clean the potential evidence from the truck that the shooting occurred,” an arrest citation obtained by WKYT showed.
WKYT reported that Baxter sought protective orders against Hicks twice in 2018. Court records indicate that she did not follow through with prosecution.
Crumley said her family last saw Baxter on the night of Valentine’s Day, when she went outside Crumley’s home to put her bag in the car.
“She even told us she was coming right back in,” Crumley said in a telephone interview Friday night.
But she didn’t come back. Crumley said the family initially thought Baxter’s current boyfriend had probably picked her up.
But her boyfriend called the next day, Crumley said, because he hadn’t been able to get in touch with her.
By Sunday, Crumley said, the family knew something was wrong and filed a missing persons report with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department.
Baxter has three daughters, ages 5, 6 and 17.
“It breaks my heart,” Crumley said.
On the night she went missing, Crumley said her sister was wearing a gray sweater, dark denim jeans and tan boots. Baxter is about 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighs about 110 pounds. She has blue eyes and reddish-brown hair.
Anyone with information has been asked to call the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at (502) 863-7855.
The sheriff’s office is “following several leads to locate her as well as create a timeline of her actions before and up to the point she went missing,” the agency said in a Facebook post on Thursday. “Multiple agencies are working with us on this investigation.”
Crumley said her sister’s bag was found in the Jeep outside where she said she was going to put it, but she had her phone with her.
Crumley asked anyone who knows anything about Baxter’s disappearance to “speak up.”
“I just want to bring her home,” she said.
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 12:43 PM.
