By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A new bond hearing has been scheduled for next week for Cheryl Leighanne Bennett, and arrangements were being made for her attorney to be able to physically see on Monday the BiPap device said to be in use by her father on the day of his July 2022 death.
Bennett and her mother, Donna Cheryl Logsdon, are each facing a charge of murder in connection with the death of their father and husband, respectively, Michael “Mickey” O. Logsdon, which, according to court documents, was caused by the powering off of his BiPap – bilevel positive airway pressure – machine.
Bennett’s attorney, John Olash, has been pressing to be able to examine the machine – which he emphasized as a breathing-assistance device, not a ventilatory – in evidence at the Glasgow Police Department, but illnesses and such have created delays on the prosecution’s side. Special prosecutor Kori Beck Bumgarner said Monday during a pretrial conference for their cases that it could be made available later that day so Louisville-based Olash could look at it while he was in town, but they needed to talk about it first, and they also needed to discuss something regarding his request for data from a Ring doorbell device before she complies with that request.
Circuit Judge John T. Alexander suggested that they pause on hearing the case while Olash and Bumgarner, who is the Warren County commonwealth’s attorney and was attending via the streaming service Zoom, could have a phone conversation to iron out those details to ensure Olash was satisfied with the plan before the end of the proceeding.
Before he stepped away from the bench, however, Olash brought up again that his client was still in custody due to the various delays that were beyond her control.
He asked, again, for the court to consider a bond reduction but, in case the judge still declined to grant that, he came prepared with a written motion that he handed the judge requesting an adversarial bond hearing.
He provided some exhibits to accompany his motion that he said showed the BiPap data that had been used by the medical examiner in determining cause of death, but he said the serial number was different from that on the one in use the day of Mickey Logsdon’s death. The one the data was from had stopped working correctly and had supposedly been replaced in April; however, additional information indicated it was returned to the company July 18, days after the death occurred. Olash said that confused him, as the BiPap in use later was supposed to have been retained as evidence. He said that all of that was why he was so anxious to see that one for himself.
Regarding the motion and exhibits, he said, “this has been pretty time-consuming to put together, but it’s really important. I think it shows that my client is innocent. I think it conclusively shows it.”
He called the time-stamped BiPap usage report “basically the smoking gun in the case.”
He noted a few key elements to the chronology leading up to Logsdon’s death, including his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS and also Lou Gehrig’s disease, in January 2022; the prescription of the BiPap in February 2022, when his other daughter moved into the home “and was his primary caregiver during this period.”
He continued describing some of the documents he was attaching to the motion and for a second time mentioned the name of Logsdon’s other daughter, Terri Jo Harris, in an apparent attempt to cast suspicion her way.
He asked that the court release his client based on that “proof,” but if the court felt that would be premature, he would respect that but wanted the hearing where he could present witnesses to support what he was saying.
Alexander said he could set up a hearing “relatively quickly” and the parties agreed to the afternoon of Feb. 15.
The judge also made a point to say, though, that at the bond hearing, the focus would be on the bond, not on the question of whether the evidence absolves Bennett.
“The issue of whether or not somebody is guilty of a crime is not really the foremost issue when you’re talking about bond. The issue about bond is whether – what is required for somebody to comply with bond conditions,” he said, adding that he did not want the hearing to be perceived as or to turn into a proceeding in which the judge is expected to make a decision on guilt or innocence, because that’s not what it is.
“We won’t be discussing whether the charges will survive this hearing that we’re going to have,” Alexander said, adding that he was not ruling out that the information Olash was providing could be relevant somehow to the issue of bond, but the prosecution will have a chance to respond to Olash’s position.
After multiple violations – in the form of drug use – of her previous bond conditions that allowed her to be on home incarceration and monitoring and attempts at less restrictive measures in response to those violations, the judge set a $500,000 cash bond in October for Bennett, which has led to her remaining lodged in the Barren County Detention Center since then. She attended court from the jail via the Zoom streaming service.
Donna Cheryl Logsdon is still free on bond and was in court in person Monday.
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