HeyJaredKentucky Case Files
Kentucky Case Files explores infamous and overlooked true crime in the Bluegrass State. Covering tantalizing cases that made headlines large and small throughout Kentucky history, KCF delves deep into the serious, macabre and always fascinating stories that showcase why…
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest publication
- Sep 1, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 14, 2026
Latest episodes
The Ashland Tragedy Case, Pt. 2: Justice (opens the original)
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On Jan. 3, 1882 — the day after three men were arrested for the Ashland murders — as many as 1,500 people descended on Catlettsburg, Ky., for a preliminary hearing. That is more than the population of the town itself. The railroads ran extra trains. People came from 50 and 60 miles away. Business in the town stopped entirely. Then the court delayed for want of witnesses, and by 10 that night reporters were writing that a crowd had gathered at the public square and there were fears of trouble bef
The Ashland Tragedy Case, Pt. 1: Bloody Christmas (opens the original)
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Around 4:30 on the morning of Christmas Eve 1881, a woman in Ashland, Ky., looked toward her neighbor's house and thought she saw lamplight. It was fire. By the time neighbors forced their way inside, three teenagers were dead: 17-year-old Robbie Gibbons, his 14-year-old sister Fannie, and Fannie's best friend Emma, who had been sent next door the evening before so the Gibbons children wouldn't be alone in the house. Daylight revealed what the darkness had hidden — blood on the bedsheets, an axe
The Joseph Smith Case, Pt. 4: Bad Choices (opens the original)
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"He made bad choices." That's what Joseph Smith's family says they were told, in one form or another, from the night he died forward. On March 5, 2021, the 25-year-old was shot and killed in a parking lot in Upton, Kentucky. The man who shot him, Ryan Woodrum, admitted to police that he fired the shots and claimed self-defense. No arrest was made. No charges were filed. No judge or jury ever weighed that claim. In the case finale, hosts Marcus Roland and Emily Steele turn to the people who knew
The Joseph Smith Case, Pt. 3: A Mountain of Questions (opens the original)
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Kentucky authorities considered the Joseph Smith case resolved. A grand jury declined to indict. The file was closed. His family was told he made bad choices. But the closer Smith's cousin Keeshia Hendrix looked at the official accounts — the police records, the recorded interviews, the investigation that lasted less than two weeks — the more she saw cracks. And she isn't alone. In Part 3 of Kentucky Case Files' four-part investigation of The Joseph Smith Case, hosts Marcus Roland and Emily Stee
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