High-profile EKY murder trial postponed as state crime lab DNA testing continues

The trial scheduled to begin next month for the man charged in the 2023 murder of a Prestonsburg woman has been delayed to allow for additional blood evidence testing at the state crime lab.

Pike County Circuit Court Judge Eddy Coleman granted the prosecutor’s request for a continuance Nov. 7 in the case against Michael “M.K.” McKinney III, 25, who is charged with stabbing Amber Spradlin, 38, to death at the home of his father, a prominent Prestonsburg dentist.

Coleman said pausing the trial set to begin Dec. 1 is in the best interest of both parties, as outstanding evidence could aid prosecutors or prove exculpatory in McKinney’s defense.

“The Court finds that the absence of available DNA evidence would be the equivalent to a missing witness in this case,” Coleman wrote.

Spradlin was found stabbed 11 times in June 2023 at the McKinney home on Arkansas Creek Road in Floyd County. A restaurant hostess, Spradlin was raised by her grandparents after her own mother was murdered when she was young. Spradlin’s murder shocked the community and has continued to attract attention as the investigation drags on.

The T-shirt and pants Spradlin was wearing the night she died, plus some undergarments, a pair of shorts and a towel investigators recovered from the scene contain traces of human blood, according to a forensic lab report state prosecutors filed Nov. 5. DNA testing has not yet been conducted on them.

Also awaiting DNA analysis are swabs from furniture, doors, sheets, flooring, a trash bag and garbage can taken from inside the McKinney home.

A grand jury indicted McKinney for murder and eight counts of tampering with evidence last year. Prosecutors say he and his father, Michael K. McKinney II, 57, plus a third co-defendant, Josh Mullins, 25, cleaned up the bloody scene and disposed of M.K. McKinney’s clothes and the murder weapon.

The elder McKinney and Mullins both face eight counts of tampering with evidence but have not been charged directly with Spradlin’s death. Proceedings against both men were also paused to allow time for the crime lab to finish DNA testing.

The case has captured state and national attention, both because of the prominence of the defendants charged and because Spradlin’s family claim inaction on the part of local officials played a role in her death.

Her family has filed a civil suit accusing the city, its police department and the Floyd County Fiscal Court of negligence after a 911 call placed before the stabbing allegedly went unanswered. M.K. McKinney is alleged to have placed that call when his father intervened. A subsequent call the local dentist made to the then-city police chief was unreported.

Only after a second 911 call was placed did first responders come to the scene, the suit claims. Oral arguments in the civil case are scheduled to begin early next year.

M.K. McKinney’s attorneys have objected to delays in his murder trial, reasserting his right to a speedy trial and insisting deficiencies in the investigative process cannot be held against him. Underfunding and understaffing at the state police crime lab in Frankfort have created an enormous backlog that can leave evidence untested for months or even years.

Defense attorneys also claim the state is changing its story by asking the judge for more time to await DNA evidence. Early prosecutor filings in the case asserted the strength of existing DNA evidence.

“One would assume that if the evidence is as strong as the prosecution has claimed, they would be more than willing to let a jury hear it,” Randy O’Neal, a partner at the O’Neal Law Office in Richmond, wrote in an emailed statement to the Herald-Leader.

O’Neal and Steven Romines, a Louisville-based criminal defense lawyer of the Romines, Weis & Young law firm, represent M.K. McKinney in the Spradlin case.

O’Neal said the defense team was “prepared for the trial to begin” in December and it is “long past time to litigate this case in a courtroom rather than on social media.”

The case was moved from Floyd County to neighboring Pike County in April due to the significant amount of public attention it has received.

Romines filed a renewed motion Oct. 28 to reduce bond after the state sought its delay, offering a proposed order that would place M.K. McKinney under house arrest. He is currently jailed in Floyd County with bail set at $5 million.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals denied M.K. McKinney’s request for a bond reduction in February, deferring to the lower court’s discretion, “although the bond appears to be high.”

Those arguments turned on “evidence now available,” not “evidence that might become available at an unspecified future date,” Romines wrote in his latest bond filing.

Commonwealth attorney Brent Turner has repeatedly urged caution due to the status of outstanding evidence since at least late March, according to court filings. Turner argued against setting the Dec. 1 trial date because he said he feared the remaining untested evidence would not be finished.

The crime lab reportedly intended to finish forensic laboratory testing in the case by mid-November, but there still remain at least 33 items to be analyzed for DNA, Turner said. The evidence is not new, but had to first be tested to confirm the presence of blood before it could move forward DNA testing, he told the Herald-Leader on Thursday.

Mark Wohlander, an attorney representing Spradlin’s family, said his clients agree with the state’s position.

“The family is very comfortable with the judge continuing the case so the final evidence can be submitted to the lab appropriately.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2025 at 5:00 AM.

Austin R. Ramsey

Lexington Herald-Leader

Austin R. Ramsey covers Kentucky’s eastern Appalachian region and environmental stories across the commonwealth. A native Kentuckian, he has had stints as a local government reporter in the state’s western coalfields and a regulatory reporter in Washington, D.C. He is most at home outdoors.