He murdered a Lexington father at a gas station. He wants to go to prison and can’t.
A man who pleaded guilty last year to murdering a 51-year-old father has asked to be moved to a state prison where he can begin rehabilitation programs.
Travis Bredhold, 25, was charged with murder, robbery and theft by unlawful taking in 2013. He was 18 years old when he shot and killed Mukeshbhai Patel, who was working at a Marathon gas station on Alexandria Drive, during a robbery.
Patel was a hard worker and a man of honor, a friend of his told the Herald-Leader after Patel died. He’d moved to the United States from India about 10 years prior to his death for a better life for his wife and sons.
Patel was working alone at the gas station when he was killed.
Patel was trying to comply with Bredhold’s demands when he was shot, Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said. Patel left behind a wife and two sons, who were 15 and 17 at the time of his death.
“I did not know Mr. Patel, but from what his family shared with us, he loved his family and America,” Red Corn said. “He provided not only for his wife and two sons, but for his sister and elderly parents, and he celebrated each Independence Day with the fervor of a proud American.”
Bredhold pleaded guilty in October. In November, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for first-degree murder, 10 years for first-degree robbery and one year for theft by unlawful taking. The sentences are to run concurrently, according to court documents.
As of Wednesday, Bredhold was in the Fayette County jail, where he’s been since his 2013 arrest.
‘I can’t change my mistakes; I have to live with them’
“I am really sorry for what I did,” Bredhold said in a statement through his attorney. “I can’t change my mistakes, and I have to live with them. I am very sorry for causing the Patel family pain.”
Bredhold’s sentencing was delayed for about a month because he contracted COVID-19, and his part of the jail was put on lockdown, said Audrey Woosnam, Bredhold’s attorney. In the months since his sentencing, he’s yet to be moved to a state prison, where he could work on rehabilitation.
Because of the charges against Bredhold, the Fayette County jail found him ineligible to participate in programs there, Woosnam said.
“He has literally been confined to his cell at the jail for a little over a year,” she said.
In January, his public defender filed a motion asking a judge to order Bredhold moved to a state prison, arguing that holding him in the Fayette County jail is a violation of state law that requires prisoners, except eligible Class C and Class D felons, to be transferred to a state prison within 45 days of final sentencing.
Inmate transfers have been delayed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago, said Lisa Lamb, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Corrections.
“Transfers were limited to medical and mental health emergencies or risk to the security of the facility,” Lamb said. “We are gradually starting to begin transferring inmates, but due to the quarantining process (we quarantine all inmates moved for a minimum of 14 days away from the facility’s general population), it is a slow process.”
Before his plea, Bredhold’s trial had been delayed by the ongoing question of whether or not he would be eligible for the death penalty. Bredhold’s attorneys argued that since he was under the age of 21 at the time of the shooting, his brain was not fully developed, and Fayette County Circuit Court Judge Ernesto Scorsone agreed in 2017.
Prosecutors appealed the decision, and it was sent to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which declined to make a ruling. The court said that because Bredhold and other defendants in question had not been found guilty at that point or sentenced to death, it was too early for the issue to be decided.
Bredhold will have to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before he’s eligible for parole, Red Corn said.
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 11:00 AM.
