By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Barren Circuit Judge John T. Alexander said Friday he would grant the prosecution’s motion to dismiss without prejudice the murder cases against a mother and daughter that have been pending for roughly two and a half years.
The pair were accused of killing Michael “Mickey” O. Logsdon on July 9, 2022. He was Bennett’s father and Donna Cheryl Logsdon’s husband. The “without prejudice” part of the dismissal leaves the door open for potential future charges against them related to the investigation of the death.
Mickey Logsdon had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which had led him to have difficulty breathing. The indictments alleged that each of the women, “acting alone or in cooperation with another, committed the crime of murder when she or an accomplice unlawfully killed Michael Logsdon by turning off his BiPAP machine, which he needed to breathe.”
BiPAP stands for bilevel positive airway pressure.
Their trial was scheduled to begin July 9, 2025.
John Gardner, commonwealth’s attorney for the 43rd judicial circuit, which consists of Barren and Metcalfe counties, recused himself from the case early on, so Jason Rothrock, an assistant attorney general for the commonwealth, was initially assigned as special prosecutor. It was Rothrock who presented the case to the grand jury that returned the indictments.
Later, Rothrock left the case and another special prosecutor out of Warren County was assigned for a relatively brief period of time. Blake Chambers, commonwealth’s attorney for the 38th judicial circuit, was then assigned the case in early 2024.
From the beginning, Chambers – as well as the defense team, which had also changed over time – sought to get as much information about and from the BiPAP device as possible, but a variety of technical and other issues prolonged the effort to get a solid expert to retrieve machine data and provide an expert opinion as to what it actually indicated.
Finally, he wrote in his motion to dismiss without prejudice the charges against the women, he was able to have a video conference just earlier this month with representatives of ResMed, the company that manufactured the breathing-assistance device, who were able to explain certain aspects of the machine’s functioning with more clarity. Those individuals were also able to retrieve additional information from a copy of the data storage card that police had in evidence.
In multiple ways, the information provided through those two individuals showed that the machine’s power was on during the period in question prior to Logsdon’s death. Because the indictment was worded as specifically as it was as to the manner of how it was believed he was killed, referring to their allegedly “turning off” the machine, Chambers wrote in his motion that he was ethically bound to request the dismissal because, based on the new things he’d learned, the court action was no longer supported by probable cause that the death was caused by an individual powering off the device.
That motion from Chambers was filed Wednesday, and a pretrial conference had already been scheduled for Friday to address other motions and procedural matters that had arisen. Alexander opened the proceeding by suggesting they start with the motion to dismiss, presumably because it would make the other issues moot.
Chambers very briefly outlined his stance that he had detailed in the written motion.
Bennett’s attorney, John Olash, said the motion was unexpected but not surprising, because he had believed all along they would never find an expert that would support the charges as stated.
When he told the client the news, though, her first response was, “They can’t do this,” Olash said, rather than it being a time for celebration or relief.
“She wants her day in court. She’s entitled to her day in court,” he said.
He said, though, that the judge did not have the power to force the prosecutor to pursue the case under the circumstances.
“So, that’s off the table. We’re not going to trial. OK,” Olash said.
He then attempted to persuade the judge that the case should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning essentially that the defendants could not face further charges in relation to Logson’s death.
In his dismissal motion, Chambers provided case precedents as to how judges must handle such requests, with one specifying that motions to dismiss pending prosecutions “must be sustained unless clearly contrary to manifest public interest.” The designation of “with prejudice” could only happen if there were “substantial law barring future prosecution.”Further, the court could not include that designation if the defendant “made no claim of denial of her right to a speedy trial, of prosecutorial misconduct so outrageous as to irrevocably taint the case against her, of double jeopardy or of any other deprivation of rights which, under … recognized principles of Constitutional law, forecloses a future attempt to prosecute her.”
Olash said he agreed that the judge did not have the authority to dismiss the charges with prejudice, over the commonwealth’s objection, unless there had been a showing of a constitutional violation or the defense could show the dismissal was based in large part on misconduct by the prosecution – “not just misconduct, it’s outrageous misconduct.”
He acknowledged, though, that they had already had a hearing on an earlier motion to dismiss from the defense based on alleged misconduct and constitutional violations at the grand jury level, and the judge had ruled that the defense did not meet the standard necessary to grant that motion. Olash said that if the court felt after that hearing that that standard wasn’t met, he didn’t expect that to change with this continued allegation.
He still asked Alexander, though, to dismiss the case with prejudice based on “unusual circumstances of this case, which the defense believes is gross prosecutorial neglect or negligence.”
He specified that he was not accusing Chambers of any misconduct at all, but rather his predecessors.
“He has been nothing but professional …,” Olash said of Chambers. “He’s been on board as far as trying to make sure that what the prosecution claims happened in the indictment is actually consistent with the truth, and we finally determined that there’s some real problems with that.”
The defense attorney said that didn’t excuse what happened in the past and there should be some remedy to that, which should include making sure it doesn’t happen again and definitely shouldn’t happen to these defendants. Dismissing with prejudice would help ensure their nightmare would be over.
Olash said there were several points when this case should have been derailed from moving forward, starting before Logsdon’s body was ever removed from the home and differing observations from two individuals as to how much water was left in the BiPAP machine, an indication of whether it was functioning. He, not for the first time, made remarks to cast aspersions toward Bennett’s sister, Terri Jo Harris, and accused her of manipulating the prosecution, among other things, to keep the case going.
He said that sister’s behavior lead investigator on the case, Brian Starnes, a detective with the Glasgow Police Department, to have confirmation bias that led him to ignore multiple signs of innocence and to mold some of the facts in ways that led to more suspicion toward the defendants.
Olash said even the medical examiner’s findings relating to possible tampering with BiPAP were based on her conversations with Starnes, and neither of them were experts on the device, but that was the lynchpin of the investigation.
“I’m asking the court to take the extraordinary remedy and allow this case to be dismissed with prejudice,” he said.
Nick Boggs, one of the attorneys representing Logsdon, added some quiet comments, concluding with asking the judge to consider Olash’s request.
Alexander then recapped some of the rules set forth by prior courts about how he could proceed and how they related to these cases, and he reiterated that they’d already had hearings about the alleged prosecutorial misconduct, stating that the defense’s issue wasn’t so much with the special prosecutor as whether the witnesses were being truthful.
“Being wrong isn’t the same thing as lying,” the judge said, adding that with this latest information, it does appear that the lead detective was wrong, but nothing indicated he was wrong on purpose.
Alexander then pointed out that there are different levels of proof required to find probable cause that someone someone should be charged with committing a crime, and thus to indict them, versus to to find someone guilty and convict them at a trial.
He also spoke about due process, noting that it doesn’t guarantee a particular outcome but rather that the process of getting to whatever outcome happens is fair to the person(s) being accused.
Ultimately, he agreed with Chambers’ assertion that the probable cause that led to the existing indictments was no longer supported, and due to the reasons stated elsewhere, he would be granting the motion to dismiss without prejudice.
The attorneys discussed submitting an order for the judge to sign to keep the evidence being held by the GPD secured there, as it could be relevant to other cases, and Alexander told them he wanted to have that order completed before he files the order to dismiss the case, rather than filing an order about a case that has already been dismissed. So, for that reason, it may take a few days longer before the cases are officially terminated.
The judge also, pre-empting an anticipated request from Olash, agreed to go ahead and remove the bond conditions for the murder cases, which include an ankle monitor for Bennett. Chambers pointed out that Bennett still has another case pending, in which she’s accused of possession of methamphetamine and other related charges, but he said he would trust Alexander’s judgement in terms of fair bond requirements for that case. Alexander said he would not require the monitoring for that charge.
Chambers suggested they still return for a June pretrial conference date that had been previously set, adding that he was optimistic they could have an agreement to resolve that case at that point.
Once the proceeding was adjourned, Bennett told members of the press that she anticipated a possible press conference to be arranged later.
“It’s not a day of celebration for my mother or myself or anyone involved …,” she said. “It’s still pursuit of justice for me. My work is just beginning as far as that’s concerned. There needs to be an investigation of the investigation.”
She had said she would elaborate on that at the press conference, but she later contacted Glasgow News 1 to advise she would not be organizing one after all, adding that she would be willing to elaborate somewhat on her earlier statement or answer other questions.
During that conversation, she said the lack of celebration wasn’t really due to the “without prejudice” aspect. Although she also does feel the investigation never should have taken the direction it did, there is an even bigger component of the situation.
“There is someone else responsible, and that’s my pursuit of justice at this point,” Bennett said.
She said she thought those on the prosecution side of the cases were also disappointed that the case wasn’t going to trial, but for different reasons.
“Anyone who is upset about us not going to trial – and we’re upset about not going to trial as well, not for those reasons, but because we want justice, and justice has not been served for either side, for the sake of my father’s memory,” she said. “That’s something that has gotten lost in all of this, and I want justice for my father’s death. He was an incredible man. He was a man of great principle. He believed in the justice system, and justice has not been served.”
She added that, “No one knows what truly happened, and it’s going to shock everyone.”
Bennett said she had been unable to talk with law enforcement, because she was under indictment, but she hopes to discuss with them in upcoming weeks about what she believes the evidence really shows about what happened with her father, and that is that another person was involved in hastening his death. She does not believe he simply succumbed to his illness. She declined to name that person at this point, but she emphasized that her position is based on evidence and not just belief.
“I believe that if someone seriously looked at what I found, an investigator who was unbiased and had a critical way of thinking …, they would agree,” Bennett said.
She added that her father would be appalled that his wife of 53 years and the woman he considered his partner and teammate was not allowed to grieve and mourn his death as she should have been and that she had to go through what she has with her case.
Bennett said that the day before he died, he had given “a loving recount of the day that they met.”
She said she’d never heard anyone say a bad word about her father, and he and anyone who loves him are owed justice.
Bennett said she wanted to encourage anyone who is interested in justice to fight for it and to “contact the powers that be in any way that they can to encourage that law enforcement continue to look at this.”
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