Kentucky Supreme Court upholds murder conviction in deaths of three adults and unborn baby
The Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man found guilty of murdering three adults and an unborn baby.
The slayings happened in February 2018 in Corbin when Tiffany Myers, 33, was shot and killed while pregnant. Her husband, 45-year-old Aaron Byers, and Myers’ grandmother, 74-year-old Mary Jackson, were also shot and killed.
The three lived together in a house along with Justin Collins, Tiffany Myers’ brother.
A jury convicted Paul Brock, 44, of the slayings in 2022.
According to the Supreme Court order, Collins said he woke up on Feb. 17, 2018, and heard a man he knew as Paul in another room discussing buying pain pills from Myers.
He said he then heard a gunshot and Myers said, “Paul, you shot me,” and heard Brock respond “I’m gonna kill you,” the opinion said.
Collins jumped out a window and went to a neighbor’s house. He later heard more shots and saw a pickup truck driving away.
Collins identified Brock and police arrested him.
Police identified Brock as a suspect based on Collins’ identification and later arrested him.
Brock denied killing Myers and Jackson and said he killed Byers in self-defense, but jurors convicted him on three counts of murder and one count apiece of fetal homicide and tampering with physical evidence, according to the court record.
Brock made a deal with the prosecutor to avoid potentially being sentenced to death. It called for him to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He later appealed, arguing among other things that the trial judge erred by refusing to suppress his statements to police; refusing to exclude the statement from a deceased victim, Myers; and not transferring the trial to another county.
However, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected his arguments and upheld the conviction in a Dec. 19 opinion.
Attorney General Russell Coleman, whose office defended the conviction before the state’s high court, announced the decision Monday.
“This was a horrific and violent crime, and Mr. Brock received a fair and lawful sentence,” Coleman said in the release. “A criminal who would take four lives, including a mother and her unborn child, has no place in our Commonwealth.”
