Family asks public’s help to solve 2014 murders of teacher and her daughter

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Wednesday, April 17, 2019 — The family of Kathy and Samantha Netherland issued a plea Wednesday (this) morning for the public’s help in solving the 2014 murder of Kathy and her 16-year-old daughter in their Botland home.

The murder investigation is still ongoing and active, according to KSP spokesman Trooper Scotty Sharp. The agency continues to search for the black 2010 to 2013 Chevrolet Impala caught on security video leaving the area the day of the murders.

The five-year anniversary of the murders is Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019.

For the Netherland family, the last five years have continued to be a struggle.

“There’s just a part of me that’s gone,” Stephanie Thompson, Kathy Netherland’s sister, told the media Wednesday.

“Its important to us that they be remembered for the lives they lived rather than what happened to them,” she said.

Thompson and her sister, Stacey Hibbard, called on anyone with information related to the murders to come forward.

Even the smallest of details may be a key to bringing the perpetrators to justice.

“Coming forward would bring us so much relief,” Thompson said. The family has had to go through the past five years surrounded by questiions that have yet to be answered.

One of those questions is why the mother and daughter were targeted. “Nothing they did can explain the level of violence that was brought to their home,” Thompson said

“We focus on the positive parts of their lives,” Hibbard said. She said she feels her sister’s presence whenever she visits the playground that was dedicated to her memory.

A KSP spokesman confirmed that the agency hired two retired KSP detectives to examine the agency’s unsolved murders, which included the Netherlands, Police Officer Jason Ellis and Tommy Ballard.

Anyone with information related to any of these cases can contact KSP Post 4 in Elizabethtown at (270) 766-5078.

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