Nearly five years after her murder and subsequent arson of her Will Jackson Road home, family members of Thelma “Ileen” Barnett found their first chapter of closure Wednesday morning in Trigg County Circuit Court — when Judge Jamus Redd sentenced Keisha Stewart to five concurrent years in prison on a litany of facilitation charges in the crime.
Stewart’s attorney, Calloway County’s Katy Riley, said her client wasn’t seeking probation, and spoke on her behalf.
Acknowledging the plea agreement, Commonwealth’s Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins obliged — noting Stewart’s role in the murder and arson was “still serious.”
Stewart would have testified in what was originally scheduled to be a February jury trial for Jonathan McCoy.
Instead, McCoy entered a plea of guilt following Stewart’s decision — and his sentencing is set for 1 PM Thursday in Cadiz.
It’s a place, Redd said, where he will have much more to say on these matters.
Stewart’s amended charges were facilitation to second-degree arson, facilitation to abuse of a corpse, facilitation to tampering with physical evidence and facilitation to second-degree burglary, and she also used her time Wednesday morning to plead guilty to fraudulent use of a credit card for more than $500, but less than $10,000, that took place in a window of September 2020.
Redd ordered that Class D felony, punishable of 1-to-5 years in prison, be served concurrently.
