Jury hung in Lexington murder trial for woman accused of killing elderly husband
A Fayette County jury came back hung after eight hours of deliberations in the murder trial for Carol Ann Hignite, who was charged with intentionally causing the death of her husband, 76-year-old Leon Dewayne Hignite.
The jury came back hung Thursday night, resulting in a mistrial, according to Brittany Scordo, director of victim services with the Fayette Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. Carol Hignite could be tried again following Thursday’s events.
The jury was sent into deliberations Thursday afternoon ahead of the Christmas holiday, following closing statements from Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Kathryn Webster and defense attorney Tucker Richardson.
Carol Hignite’s trial has continued throughout the week, with jurors seeing and hearing evidence from both prosecutors and defense attorneys regarding her charges, which are murder, knowingly neglecting an elderly person and third-degree arson.
Her trial began Monday with prosecutors Mary Tobin and Kathryn Webster arguing that Carol Hignite killed her husband by attacking him with a hammer and neglecting him for three days before calling for help.
Carol Hignite’s defense team, led by Russell Baldani and Tucker Richardson, has argued that Leon Hignite had multiple health issues which caused him to fall in the couple’s bathroom and hit his head on a sink, ultimately leading to his death.
Hignite told investigators that her husband went into the bathroom perfectly fine and was in there for 10 minutes before she heard him fall. She said he came out injured, and got down onto the floor where he laid until emergency services arrived three days later.
Leon Hignite was found dehydrated and emaciated with broken ribs, a broken femur, collapsed lung, crushed orbital sockets and more than 30 lacerations to the crown of his head, according to court testimony.
Defense: Investigators made ‘rush to judgment’
Similar to his opening statements, Richardson said the central issue of the case was not whether Carol Hignite neglected her husband’s injuries, but whether or not she caused them.
Richardson and Baldani took issue with the lack of evidence tested by police, which the attorneys said could have supported the story Carol Hignite gave to police during their investigation.
Richardson said the police held a confirmation bias when conducting their investigation, and they wanted to support the theory they thought was plausible.
“A rush to judgment, tunnel vision, I don’t know what you want to call it, it is the same thing, but they looked at the only evidence that supported their belief,” Richardson said.
Defense attorneys supported their client’s theory that Leon Hignite fell in the bathroom and repeatedly hit his head on the sink while trying to get up, causing his lacerations. They said he then came out of the bathroom and laid on the floor by his bed with his head under the bed frame, which he could have also hit his head on, they argued.
But police did not test the sink or bed frame for any kind of blood, hair or tissue.
“They didn’t even swab it to have an indication that he did bang his head there,” Richardson said. “That could have led you to the conclusion that Carol was telling the truth.”
“They gave the eyeball testing and decided that was enough,” he said.
Defense attorneys also spoke of several medical issues Leon Hignite had which they said contributed to the severity of his injuries and his fall. Police said they did not follow up on confirming this.
The attorneys focused heavily on Leon Hignite’s former medical history, saying he had anemia and low platelet counts. They often referenced him as a “free bleeder.”
Robert Wilson, a former detective with Lexington police who led the investigation, said in court he did not watch body camera footage of when officers went into the home and solely relied on conversations from officers.
“He saw the impossibility of her statement, and he quit, he literally quit (trying),” Richardson said.
Richardson referenced blood spatter which was shown on the bedroom and bathroom walls — which was confirmed to be Leon Hignite’s through DNA testing — and said this could be from his “free bleeding” or a Pepsi that spewed throughout the room.
“Maybe he cut his finger and shook his finger around,” he said. “It could have been a Pepsi that fell and went all over the wall.”
He said prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Carol Hignite killed her husband or set their home on fire.
Prosecutors to jury: ‘Hold her accountable for what she did.’
Webster presented closing statements for the state, and said she felt they had proven Carol Hignite was guilty of the charges she faced.
“We have proved she killed her husband, tried to burn her house down, and for not calling for help for her husband when it was obviously needed,” she said.
She referenced all the things Carol Hignite did do instead of calling for help in the three days her husband lie bleeding on the floor from his injuries.
She said she prepared paper crosses which had “God help heal Dwayne” written on them that were taped on the bed and on a fan near his body. Photographs of the crosses were presented as evidence.
Handwritten notes from Carol Hignite throughout the three days which depicted all the things she did were also presented as evidence.
“She made notes so that she wouldn’t forget,” Webster said. “What she didn’t have time to do is call 911 but she did do some light house keeping. She had time to prepare paper crosses which didn’t help anything at all.
“She had time to throw down some newspaper to clean up the blood of her husband as if he was potty-training a puppy, and not to help her bleeding husband.”
Webster discussed the blood spatter and said blood was everywhere — which was not from a Pepsi, nor a sneeze — as the defense claimed.
A large blood stain was also found on the mattress in the bathroom, but said there was nothing on the bed frame, as the defense suggested.
“(Police) looked, they checked the bed frame, and there was nothing there,” she said. “It was impossible that those injuries came from that bed frame.”
Webster also presented several theories why Hignite killed her husband, including that she wanted to move and not take him, she got mad and went “overboard,” or the possibility that she didn’t wabt to take care of him anymore.
“I think it started in the bathroom, that she chased him throughout the house, and got him on the bed and bludgeoned him until he fell onto the floor where she left him,” she said. “...This wasn’t an accident.”
Webster asked the jury to “hold her accountable for what she did” on behalf of Leon Hignite and other members of the Hignite family.
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 2:38 PM.
