Monroe Countians in the Ebenezer Community were shocked Friday night, April 20, by a brutal murder that occurred at the residence of 63-year-old Brenda Howard.

Monroe County 9-1-1 dispatch received a call at 8:37 Friday night reporting that Howard’s granddaughter had found her unresponsive, lying in a pool of blood. Responding Deputy Sheriff Larry Martin was first on the scene, and along with Monroe County Ambulance personnel confirmed that Howard was deceased, apparently the victim of what responders called a grisly and violent murder.

According to a Kentucky State Police report issued the following day, Sheriff Roger Barlow then called KSP Post 15 at 10:16 p.m. requesting assistance with a death investigation. Detectives Ricky Brooks and Russell Decker arrived shortly thereafter and assumed responsibility for the investigation into Howard’s death. It was determined that she was beaten and stabbed and that her home had been burglarized.

Officers with the sheriff’s office had already begun a neighborhood canvas before the KSP detectives arrived and learned from neighbors that a burgundy Saturn sedan with a cracked driver’s side windshield had been observed leaving the scene. Investigators quickly linked the vehicle to Chasity Hagan, 34, of Homer Bartley Road, Summer Shade, and John “Fatman” Smith, 41, of Dubree Road, Tompkinsville.

Around 11 p.m., officials quietly issued a “be on the lookout” notification for a vehicle matching that description and a short time later, after gathering more information, issued an “all points bulletin” for the vehicle, as well as for Hagan and Smith, alerting officers to consider them armed and extremely dangerous.

As deputies were patrolling the county and Tompkinsville Police were patrolling inside the city limits in search of the pair, the vehicle was quickly located at the residence of Hagan’s mother, Wanda Hagan, on Homer Bartley Road. Detectives Brooks and Decker, as well as Deputies Martin and Charles Smith, went to the residence and subsequently took Hagan to the Tompkinsville Police Department to interview her in reference to the matter. Unknown to any of the officers and with this information withheld by both the Hagan women, Smith was apparently hiding in a near bedroom of the home throughout the night.

At the request of the KSP detectives, a sheriff’s deputy was posted outside the Hagan residence to watch the vehicle they had looked for all night, as it was considered a key piece of evidence in the investigation.

Early Saturday morning, as a hard rain began to fall and before the sun was up, Smith ran from the residence through a rear door, according to the elder Hagan, and into a heavily wooded area behind the home.

An all out “manhunt” began for Smith, with officers searching the surrounding area in the rain before being given the order to abandon the search. They said this was because KSP had a K9 officer en route and the less human odor laid down in the area the better it would be for the search dog.

Officers with the KSP and MCSO continued to patrol the area’s roadways while they waited for the dog to arrive, assuring that Smith stayed in a small parcel of real estate and away from any of the other homes in the area. Once the dog was actually on scene, he led his handler directly to an abandoned cabin several hundred yards behind the Hagan home and only a short distance from where officers had been searching before the ground search was halted. Once found by the canine, Smith was taken into custody without incident.

Later in the day (Saturday, April 21), as KSP officers were searching the vehicle that led them to the pair, they located a methamphetamine lab in the trunk of the car. Tompkinsville Police Department lab technicians Jimmy Carter and Kevin Webb assisted by dismantling the lab as no KSP or MCSO technicians were available at the time. (Note: Smith is currently awaiting trial on a manufacturing methamphetamine charge, related to a situation where he and Timothy “Cowboy” Curtis allegedly were found with an active lab just outside the Tompkinsville city limits just a few weeks ago.)

Smith and Hagan were both officially charged with murder and burglary later Saturday afternoon, and lodged in Monroe County Jail. They were arraigned last Tuesday, April 24 in Monroe District Court before Judge Kristi Castillo with bond reduction being denied on both. County Attorney Wes Stephens also requested that the charges on Hagan be amended to complicity to commit murder and complicity to commit burglary.

They were both represented by public defenders and a preliminary hearing date was set for this past Tuesday, May 1 for both defendants.