Bloody Rampage Blamed on Afternoon of Drinking : Female Ex-Convicts Charged in 5 Deaths

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Police said today two women suspects in a bloody rampage in which five people were stabbed, run over by a car, shot or burned apparently decided to rob the victims after an afternoon of drinking and partying. Both the suspects and victims had long criminal records, officials said.

The suspects, ex-convicts Tina Hickey Powell, 27, and LaFonda Foster, 22, were arraigned today on charges of murdering Carlos Kearns, 71, and police said they would also charge the women with the other slayings.

Powell’s attorney, John Larson, entered a plea of innocent and told reporters later that his client “is not a killer.” Judge Lewis Paisley said he will appoint a public defender to represent Foster.

The women, shackled hand and foot and dressed in prison blues, were ordered held in lieu of $100,000 cash bond each at the Fayette County Detention Center.

Homicide Detective John Bizzack called the slayings “a bizarre series of events” that came after the group had spent Wednesday afternoon “drinking and partying together.”

“We’ve established evidence that suggests the motive was robbery,” Bizzack said, adding some money was recovered. But he declined to elaborate.

Three of the victims were run over by a car, one was shot and one was fatally burned in the back seat of a car. Four victims had also been stabbed, police said.

Powell and Foster, former convicts at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, were first arrested for public drunkenness at a hospital where Kearns died. They were later charged with killing Kearns, whose wife, Virginia, 45, was also slain. Also killed were Trudy Harrell, 59, Roger Keene, 47, and Theodore Sweet, 53.

Bizzack said that the suspects had served prison time on narcotics, robbery and fraud charges and that the victims also had long criminal records, including arrests for robbery, forgery and concealing a deadly weapon.

The bodies were found Wednesday night between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. within five miles of each other.

“We have not determined the order in which they were killed, but it was over a short period of time,” Fayette County Coroner Chester Hager said.