http://bit.ly/ySSsVi - Guilty But Mentally Ill
ACTION: CALL 1-800-372-7181 TODAY AND LEAVE THIS MESSAGE FOR YOUR STATE
REPRESENTATIVE: PLEASE ASK REP. TILLEY TO GIVE HB 145 A HEARING IN THE HOUSE
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE NOW.
(If Mr. Tilley is your State Representative, then leave this message: Rep.
Tilley please give HB 145 a hearing so Kentucky cannot execute severely mentally
ill defendants.)
This session of the Kentucky General Assembly concluded the half-way mark last
Thursday, Feb 15. House Bill 145, a bill to end the use of the death penalty for
severely mentally ill persons, still languishes in the House Judiciary
Committee. Though the sponsor, Rep. Darryl Owens, has personally requested Rep.
John Tilley who chairs that committee to give HB 145 a hearing, Rep. Tilley has
not even posted the bill for such. (House rules require a bill be posted for a
hearing at least three days before the hearing.)
This is particularly disturbing because of the recent ABA Kentucky Assessment
report that specifically recommends ending the death penalty for severely
mentally ill persons.
In addition the Lexington Herald-Leader published.an editorial on Feb 17 calling
for passage of this important legislation.
That editorial appeared on the same day that The Daily News published a story
demonstrating how needed this legislation is. Kathy Coy, a woman who committed a
horrible crime, killing 21-year-old Jamie Stice and cutting Stice's unborn son
from her womb, pled quilty BUT MENTALLY ILL and will be sentenced to life
without parole.
The local prosecutor, Commonwealth Attorney Chris Cohron who has opposed earlier
versions of HB 145, wanted to see this mentally ill defendant executed. However,
he agreed to the plea agreement, not because of her mental illness, but for what
he called a "logical resolution." Here is what The Daily News said:
Reaching a decision against seeking the death penalty was a tough call for
Warren County Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Cohron.
"I have struggled more than I have in any other case from the standpoint
everything in my heart told me the only resolution for Ms. Coy was the death
penalty," Cohron said after the hearing. But because Kentucky rarely executes
people on death row, and many death convictions are overturned, a guilty plea
with a sentence of life without parole is a "logical resolution."
Click here to read the entire story.
With prosecutors clearly willing to see even severely mentally ill persons
executed, we must urge Representative Tilley to hear this bill and urge each
State Representative to vote YES for its passage.
ACTION: CALL 1-800-372-7181 TODAY AND LEAVE THIS MESSAGE FOR YOUR STATE
REPRESENTATIVE: PLEASE ASK REP. TILLEY TO GIVE HB 145 A HEARING IN THE HOUSE
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE NOW.
(If Mr. Tilley is your State Representative, then leave this message: Rep.
Tilley please give HB 145 a hearing so Kentucky cannot execute severely mentally
ill defendants.)
The delicate action of grace in the soul is profoundly disturbed by all human
violence. Passion, when it is inordinate, does violence to the spirit and its
most dangerous violence is that in which we seem to find peace. Violence is not
completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude. (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux). 114
Guilty but mentally ill
Defendant in grisly case avoids death penalty with plea, while victims family
says justice about as much as could be expected
By DEBORAH HIGHLAND The Daily News dhighland@bgdailynews.com/783-3243 | 2
comments
A Morgantown woman pleaded guilty but mentally ill today to kidnapping and
killing a pregnant woman and taking her unborn baby.
Kathy Coy, 34, pleaded guilty in Warren Circuit Court to kidnapping and
murdering 21-year-old Jamie Stice, cutting Stice's unborn son from her womb and
then kidnapping the infant, who she tried to pass off as her own, in April. The
baby survived and is healthy.
By entering a plea, Coy escaped the possibility of a death sentence and could
now face life without parole, the sentence that the commonwealth recommended. A
sentencing hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. March 1.
The guilty plea spared Stice's family a lengthy trial and appellate process.
"I don't know that there will ever be justice, but this is better than nothing,"
Jamie's mother, Jeannie Stice, said after Coy entered her plea. Jeannie Stice
originally wanted to see her daughter's killer receive the death penalty but
realized that Kentucky rarely executes people who receive that punishment, she
said before today's hearing.
Reaching a decision against seeking the death penalty was a tough call for
Warren County Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Cohron.
"I have struggled more than I have in any other case from the standpoint
everything in my heart told me the only resolution for Ms. Coy was the death
penalty," Cohron said after the hearing. But because Kentucky rarely executes
people on death row, and many death convictions are overturned, a guilty plea
with a sentence of life without parole is a "logical resolution."
Jeannie Stice, along with many of Jamie's other relatives and friends, filled
the courtroom today wearing pink ribbons in Jamie's honor. Pink was Jamie's
favorite color.
Jamie's father, Terry Stice, said he was grateful that Coy admitted her guilt,
led police to his daughter's body, which might not have otherwise been found,
and that the family will not have to go through a trial.
"I think this is appropriate," Kentucky State Police Detective Chad Winn said
after the hearing. Winn was the lead detective on the case that he called a
"group effort" on the part of his fellow detectives at Post 3. "I think given
the circumstances of this case, it would have been very difficult for the family
to go through a trial. I don't know that there truly is justice for a case like
this. I do believe if this brings some type of closure for the family, it's the
right decision."
State police found Jamie Stice's body April 14 in a wooded area off U.S. 68-Ky.
80 near Oakland. Her throat had been cut and her wrists bound and slit. Stice
had been disemboweled, and her baby boy had been cut from her body with a
drywall knife.
The infant still had the umbilical cord, a uterus and two ovaries attached to
him when Coy showed up at a friend's Butler County house April 13 claiming to
have just given birth, according to police court testimony in May and court
records. Coy asked the friend to snap a picture and send it to her husband, who
was out of town.
Coy's story unraveled when she and the baby were taken by ambulance from Butler
County to The Medical Center in Bowling Green, where doctors quickly determined
that Coy could not have given birth to the baby and hospital personnel called
police.
Coy, a twice-divorced mother of two teenagers, befriended Jamie Stice and
another pregnant woman on Facebook, according to court testimony in May. Coy
told detectives that she had suffered a miscarriage before Stice's murder, a
claim that detectives were never able to fully substantiate, Winn said after the
hearing.
Between the first hearing in May and today, police learned that Coy had faked
many pregnancies in the past and stalked other pregnant women going back for
years, Winn said.
"So it was consistent behavior with her," he said.
"I think she was definitely obsessed with being pregnant and the thought of
having a baby," Winn said.
Even though Kathy Coy and Shannon Coy were no longer married at the time of the
murder, Shannon Coy still listed Kathy Coy as his wife on his Facebook page at
that time. Thurman Coy, who lives in Roundhill, called Kathy Coy his "ex"
daughter-in-law and declined to comment about the case in April.
Winn didn't know if Coy's motivation for faking the birth was to keep her
relationship going with Shannon Coy.
In the weeks leading up to the kidnappings and murder, Coy disclosed to her then
13-year-old daughter that she had miscarried and she asked the teen for her help
in kidnapping a baby, according to court testimony. Coy also asked her then 14-
year-old son if he would help her commit a murder. Both teens refused to help
their mother with her requests.
Coy lured Stice into her car on the premise that the two women were going to
obtain baby items April 13. She used a stun gun to subdue Stice and drove her to
the wooded area where police found her body, according to May court testimony.
Her unborn baby boy, Isaiah Allen Stice Reynolds, survived and lives primarily
with his father, spending every other weekend with Stice's family.
"I feel like as much justice was served that could be served," said James
Reynolds, the baby's father, who sat stoically in the courtroom, staring at Coy,
during the hearing.
