Man charged with fetal homicide, accused of abusing pregnant woman in KY
A Tennessee man was indicted recently on a fetal homicide charge in Kentucky after prosecutors say he repeatedly abused a pregnant woman, killing her unborn child.
Taylor Dehart, 35, of Cumberland Gap, Tenn., inflicted blunt force trauma to the woman’s abdomen, according to the Bell County Sheriff’s Department.
Dehart was indicted Feb. 6 and arrested Feb. 13. No other details about the alleged abuse, including when it happened, were included in court documents.
Dehart also had several active warrants in Kentucky and Georgia, according to the sheriff’s department. Two of his active warrants were for probation violations in Kentucky, and one was a probation violation in Georgia.
In April 2025, Dehart pleaded guilty in separate cases in Kentucky to theft of between $1,000 and $10,000 and fourth-degree assault. He was given five years of probation for the theft charge, according to court records.
Dehart was sentenced to a year in jail for the assault charge, but he was granted pretrial diversion in the theft case, according to court records. Pretrial diversion is a program that postpones prison sentences for qualified defendants who plead guilty to class D felonies and places them on probation.
Defendants on diversion must obey all the orders of their probation during the diversion period, and if they complete the program, the charges are dismissed. His probation was supposed to end in April 2030.
The other probation violation was from Georgia and was related to original charges of armed robbery, according to the sheriff’s department.
Dehart is being held in the Claiborne County Jail in Tennessee awaiting extradition to Kentucky.
Dehart’s bond is listed at $250,000, according to court records. He is scheduled to be arraigned April 17 in Bell County Circuit Court.
Wolfe County case
Dehart’s fetal homicide charge came weeks after another high-profile case in Wolfe County in which a woman was improperly indicted on the same charge.
The woman, Melinda Spencer, allegedly took abortion medication to terminate a pregnancy. Wolfe County prosecutor Miranda King obtained an indictment for fetal homicide on Jan. 6, but the charge was dropped less than a day later after King said she read state law realized it could not be applied to women seeking abortion care.
While Kentucky bans nearly all abortions, with few exceptions, the state’s fetal homicide law explicitly prohibits its application in cases of abortion care. Spencer still faces charges of concealing the birth of an infant, abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.
The fetal homicide charge was created by a February 2004 law that says a person is guilty when they act with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child.
This story was originally published February 16, 2026 at 11:47 AM.
