Local News
Johnson held for grand jury in son’s death
Mother also has reported history of abuse with another child
By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer
Amanda Johnson’s alleged treatment of her son Stephen Carl Troy was apparently not the first time she had reportedly abused a child.
According to reports from Muskegon County, Michigan assistant prosecutor Brett Gardner, Johnson’s first child was taken from her after she pleaded no contest in 2005 to child abuse for injuring her two-year-old son.
He told reporters the boy had sustained a spiral fracture to his arm. Parental rights were terminated for her and the boy’s father, Michael Troy.
Rights to a second child were also terminated when the county’s child protective services took the child directly from the hospital after his birth.
The pair reportedly left for Kentucky in September 2007, a month before Stephen’s birth.
Johnson, 21, was held over for the Laurel grand jury after a pre-trial hearing in Laurel District Court.
Johnson had been charged with murder in the death of her third child, 23-month-old Stephen on Oct. 23.
According to testimony in the hearing, Stephen was dead on arrival at St. Joseph hospital in London.
Kentucky State Police Detective Mark Allen testified that the child died of blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Allen said he had interviewed Johnson and her live-in boyfriend Will Callahan over the next few days and in those interviews, Allen said, Callahan had reported seeing Johnson throw the baby and punch the child in the back.
Stephen’s father, Michael Troy, had earlier reported a fist-sized bruise on the child’s back.
Callahan told Allen that on the morning of the incident, Stephen was crying and Johnson had told him that it was perhaps because the child didn’t want her to leave for work.
An autopsy revealed that Stephen had died as the result of the rupture of arteries to his small intestine and internal bleeding.
Along with the murder charge came charges of criminal abuse.
Johnson is in the Laurel County jail under a $250,000 bond.
Indictments are set to be returned on Nov. 20.
- Local News
-
-
Adopt-a-Highway week begins Sunday
Volunteers will be out in force next week to spring clean Kentucky highways. The Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) announced that the Adopt-a-Highway Spring Clean Week will be held March 21-27.
-
Audit: Co. Clerk overpaid worker
Knox County Clerk Mike Corey admits he overpaid an employee by more than $8,000 in wages in 2008, but says, “I did what I had to do” for a long-time employee who faced an emergency medical situation.
-
Survey Says? Laurel Meth Watch making a mark
Work by Laurel County’s Agency for Substance Abuse Policy (ASAP) seems to be making its mark.
-
How many actually work for the state?
Jeff Hoover has a simple question for Gov. Steve Beshear: just how many people work for state government? But he’s found it’s not such a simple answer.
-
Senate alters, then passes Amanda’s Bill
The state Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a significantly altered domestic violence bill from the version passed earlier by the House as the mother of the woman for whom it is named watched from the overhead balcony.
-
Woman cut from car after wreck on Fifth St.
A 63-year-old woman was trapped in her SUV following a two-car crash Tuesday along Fifth Street Road east of its intersection with KY 1259.
-
Truck with satellite dishes tumbles on Tobacco Road
A tractor-trailer loaded with 40,000 pounds of satellite dishes turned over in east London Tuesday morning.
-
Dogs removed from home put down
Three dogs removed from a Highland Park home on March 11 were in such poor health that the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter had to put the dogs down, according to police.
-
Man knocked out by falling tree
A North Corbin man was flown to University of Kentucky Medical Center Wednesday night after being struck by the snapping trunk of a falling tree.
-
Nighbert again advising Republicans on road plan
By Ronnie Ellis
CNHI News Writer
Bill Nighbert, the former secretary of the Transportation Cabinet (and former Williamsburg mayor) who was tried — and acquitted — on charges of bid-rigging, is again advising Senate Republicans on transportation matters. - More Local News Headlines
-
Adopt-a-Highway week begins Sunday
