Law&Crime Sidebar - Kentucky Mom Accused of Killing Her Two Young Sons in Twisted Shooting

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Tiffanie Lucas, 32, is accused of killing her own sons, ages 6 and 9, at their home in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. A judge ordered her held on $2 million bond. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber spoke with Col. Alex Payne, Chief Deputy of the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office, about what deputies learned at the crime scene.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LawAndCrimeHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Boys! Peanut! A mom in Kentucky is behind bars charged with murdering her two young sons. We're talking with Colonel Alex Payne, Chief Deputy at the Sheriff's Office, about the investigation so far. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. A horrible situation to talk to you about right now in Kentucky, a 32-year-old woman, Tiffany Lucas, is accused of shooting her own children.

Bullitt County deputies arrived at a home in Shepherdsville that's south of Louisville around 11 a.m. on Wednesday. And that is where two boys, ages six and nine, were shot. A neighbor reportedly found the children with gunshot wounds in a bedroom, called 911. The boys were taken by ambulance to a children's hospital with a police escort, but they both died. Bullitt County judge set a $2 million bond for Lucas on Thursday, saying that she is a danger to others. Lucas is charged with two counts of murder. She's going to be back in court next week. I want to bring in right now a very special guest to talk about this.

one of the members of the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office. Colonel Alex Payne, Chief Deputy at the Sheriff's Office is with us. Colonel, thank you so much for taking the time. Really difficult case. I really just want to start off. How is the community reacting to this? How is the family of the boys reacting to this? As you would expect, in shock, a lot of grief, horrific act.

just as you know you would expect any community i guess across this country to react to something like this um it's it's shocking uh it's it's something that you never want to confront but unfortunately we have however we have a strong community here in bullet county and they're uh they're supporting uh the loved ones the family of uh of these young children in your career in this community have you ever seen anything like this No. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to get into it. Try to understand it. First, let's start from the beginning. How, was there a witness that told police that Lucas did this? There, we have a witness that was located there on scene. We're still into that part of the investigation. We'll still be hammering that out, but there was, there were statements evidently that were made there on scene. To our recollection right now, this, you know, the individual that is responsible basically went next door to a neighbor's house and was eventually there was a husband and a wife there and she was actually in their driveway, laying down into their driveway when they came across her.

And the husband ended up going inside the house, locating the boys and immediately coming out and calling 911. And that's when the police and EMS response occurred. This witness was, do you know, was in the house when the shooting took place? Was this person injured at all? No. No. No, there's no, there's no, as far as we know, right now, there's actually, to our knowledge, at this point right now, no actual witness to the shooting itself.

Okay, because I think there was some reporting as almost this this person was an eyewitness to the shooting. That wouldn't be accurate. No, it would not. But this person does have knowledge about what happens. happen. Yes, they do. Okay, so we want to thank Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring this video. I think it's pretty clear from the stories that we cover that it's not always safe out there. When you're hurt, it can be pretty confusing. It can be scary. You don't know where to turn. Well, Morgan and Morgan is actually the largest injury law firm in America. And at a time when you

already have so much to think about, they make it super easy for you. They've completely modernized the process because you submit your claim, you sign contracts, you upload documents and you talk to your whole legal team all on your phone. That's it. An attorney's going to review your case in just eight clicks. Also, they have 4,000 support staff that can help you through the process too, which is just amazing to think about. And in terms of price, you only pay them if you win. There's no upfront fee. So if you're injured, you want to join the over three million people that call them every year, you can submit a claim at www.forthepeople.com slash law and crime or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone.

First responders immediately come. They try to save the light. The boys died on the way to the, you know, directly at the hospital. I mean, was there any chance? How severe were the wounds if you could tell us, you know, were they shot multiple times? Just trying to get a sense of what happened to them. I can tell you this. The boys were shot in an area that would not be survivable for anybody. However, they were alive, to the best of our knowledge, when they were transported by EMS to the hospital and passed away while at the hospital. And they weren't able to say anything, right?

No. Were they shot multiple times? That's yet to be determined. There's a, that'll come out during the autopsy. I don't want to say, you know, not actually having that factual information in front of me, which I don't. But it wouldn't surprise me. But like I said, I don't, I can't factually state that right now. Has the weapon been recovered?

Has it been analyzed? There was evidence there that it was recovered at the scene. And again, that's part of the ongoing investigation, all of that. All of that evidence will be analyzed. So, in other words, and I know there's not limited, you're limited in what you can say, but the actual home is being processed for evidence currently. Has been, yes, sir. Absolutely. Are there any other areas that you're looking at?

Not right now. No, sir. Everything appears at this point in time to have been contained right there inside that home at that address. Curiel, you know what I'm going to ask you, because I think it's what everybody's wondering, why would this have happened if she killed her children what would be a potential motive have you unearthed anything no we really as far as our responsibility and you know this you know from law enforcement we're responsible actually for the criminal investigation itself and and then being the best witnesses that we can possibly be for the information that we put forward to the prosecutor so

motive sometimes can be a byproduct but you know I can tell you now in my 40 plus years of being in this line of work, there are three things that I've seen, and it can be these things individually or it can be these things in combination. You can have a individual who is suffering from some type of mental illness. You can have an individual who has some type of substance abuse problem, or that individual can simply be just that evil. Or it can be a combination of those things. I haven't seen any other outliers other than those three. And so right now i guess it's you know anybody's guess as to what uh which one of those she covers so there's no evidence at this point uh about which of those you know those paths she might

have gone down if she did this no not right now not that i know of what do we know about her do we know anything about her her relationship with her children you know that'll come out you know and you know how these things go you know we respond there you know this is the first time we've come across these people this family you know these these neighbors And it's under these horrific circumstances that we have to basically turn back time, you know, from the time that we arrive on the scene to basically re-creating the last moments of those lives of those young, young boys and then start digging into, you know, all of their lives and just kind of turning everything back and putting it together as best we can. And so this early in the investigation, that's, you know, we really, you know, we will learn, you know, as we go forward. But right now there's not just a whole lot. Let me just take a step back here, Arnold, and just to make sure the evidence right now, and it is early in the investigation, it points to Tiffany Lucas, right?

There's nothing else that would suggest someone else did this. You're right. Yeah, there's nothing else. There's nothing else that points to anyone else. Has anybody been calling in saying, hey, listen, you know, now that this happened, I know some more information about Tiffany Lucas, I know something about the kids. Anybody, you've been getting tips at all? To my knowledge, no.

You know, we've spoken with family members, of course, you know, those that, you know, have reached out to us and those that we've located through. But other than that, other than just going through a normal investigative process as far as contacting everybody that we can get information on, family members, things like that, that we can contact, you know, we're just, and we're putting that together. And then when all of that is done, we'll have a more comprehensive idea of what that may be that family dynamic was like. What is the family said about this, if you can share? You know, they're, they're the same way that the, the vast majority of the community is, or all of the community, to my knowledge,

and, you know, they're in shock. They're extremely, they're torn up. They're, they're, I can't believe it. You know, you get, you know, the comments like that. I can't believe this. It's unreal to them, which is, which is common, you know, in these things. And that's, that's the, that's the reaction that, at least that I've been getting from. Miss Lucas doesn't have a criminal record or anything like that? Not that I'm aware of. No, sir. What about the father of the children? Do we know anything about him? I believe one father is deceased. I believe another father is, uh, has been out of the picture for quite some time without going into a whole lot of detail on those that's that's about the extent of that um again i know that you can't say much but when lucas was brought into custody

did officers have a chance to speak to her at all no you know that's something that we don't do initially right you know until we Mirandize that individual until we start and then of course detectives she was taken away from that scene brought to one of our facilities and interviewed there. And during that time, and, you know, we, we avoid, you know, any, any conversations, any questions, anything like that. So there was, there was none of that until the detectives got there and then went about the proper process of that interview and interrogation.

Anything you could tell us about that interrogation? No, sir, not right now. Unfortunately, no. I understand. We saw that apparently Lucas had posted on her Facebook, as recently as Halloween, showing her and the boys in, I think, Star Wars costumes. That was particularly chilling how you go from that to now the situation we have here and what she's accused of.

Did you have a chance to see that? I did. And some other photographs with the children. But, yeah, it's just horrible. My understanding is she has a preliminary hearing scheduled for November 14th. If you can, what can we expect from that? That'll be up to the courts. Like I said, as far as what we control, we control the investigation.

So that's what we're doing. We're putting together all that material, all that material, that investigation itself will be presented to a Commonwealth attorney who then will make the decision to probably put that before a grand jury. A grand jury will consider all the evidence that's presented there and decide to indict or not. And then the case will go forward from there. It's just the typical judicial process that'll be taking place.

And we don't have any control of that, of course. That's just the courts at this point in time will be the best witnesses for the case that we put forward as we possibly can. Do you think that this is going to be a rather complex investigation or at this point do you feel like you have almost everything you might need here? You never can't tell. I mean, you know, right now, you know, you're going to get what you're going to get. And right now we're trying to gather everything. thing that we possibly can, that we have knowledge of the, to put together, is part of our investigation to present to the Commonwealth?

Colonel, before I let you go, any message to the community, any message to our viewers or listeners about how they can help here, anything that they can do to further the investigation or try to understand what happened here? You know, we've, we have a tip line, and people in the community in Bullock County are actually very good at utilizing that. And we have a very good relationship with the people of Bullock County. And they know, you know, all they have to do is come forward if there is anything that they may have, which in this particular case, I don't know what that would be. But if they think it is of some importance, even minor things, they, I don't believe anyone would hesitate due to the

circumstances in this case of coming forward and contacting someone from this office to help us out. Colonel Alex Payne, thank you so much. I know this is a difficult time. It's rocked your community. It is clearly rocked that family. Appreciate you giving us a little bit more insight into what's happening. And we're definitely going to continue to follow it. This is a really bad one. And I know this one, I speak to officers all the time.

And it's the, I know for me personally, but it's the crimes against children that are the ones of the toughest and the ones that stay with you. So appreciate the work that you do. And thank you. And good luck on the investigation. All right. Thank you, sir.

I appreciate it. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.