PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — The attorney for the man accused of killing Amber Spradlin is seeking to have his client’s bond reduced, and he is using the occasion to paint an alternative theory of the case.
Spradlin’s body was found in the home of Dr. Michael McKinney on June 18, 2023. She had been stabbed at least 11 times in the neck and head.
McKinney’s son, M.K. McKinney, has been charged with her murder. Both McKinneys and family friend Josh Mullins are also charged with eight counts of evidence tampering for allegedly trying to cover up the crime.
While Michael McKinney and Mullins are currently out of jail on home incarceration, M.K. McKinney remains in jail on a $5 million cash bond.
M.K. McKinney’s attorney, Steven Romines, filed a motion Tuesday seeking to have his client’s bond lowered. While the motion makes the typical arguments about M.K. McKinney not being a flight risk or danger to the community, as well examples of other defendants receiving lower bonds for similar charges, it also spends time trying to point the finger at another person as a suspect.
Romines spends time claiming there is no physical evidence or witness statements tying M.K. McKinney to the crime and says the entire case against him is based on circumstantial evidence. Then he pivots to make the claim that Roy Kidd, Spradlin’s friend who accompanied her to Seasons Inn and the McKinney home, should be considered the suspect.
“The allegations against the Defendant are not only unsupported by the evidence provided to this point — the evidence weighs against an entirely different person,” Romines writes. “The motion filed by the Commonwealth states that Amber Spradlin was murdered as ‘an act of extreme rage,’ committed by someone ‘unstable and dangerous.’ On the night of Amber’s death, one individual was indeed displaying violent outbursts and instability — but it was not the Defendant.
“Roy Kidd was intoxicated to the point of belligerence, and KSP testified under oath at the Grand Jury that Amber was upset and disturbed at Roy Kidd’s drunken belligerent behavior and felt he ’embarrassed’ her in front of her employer. KSP further testified that Amber was so angry at Roy that she was taken upstairs to be separated from him. Roy’s unbalanced behavior grew so out-of-control that the Defendant himself called 911 to plead for law enforcement’s help in controlling Roy, to no avail. The Commonwealth is reasonable to argue that this was a crime of intense, volatile emotion, but that accusation weighs far less against Michael McKinney III than the Commonwealth suggests. It was Roy Kidd at whom Amber was upset and angry that morning, not MK. It was Roy Kidd who was violent and out of control that morning, not M.K. It was Roy Kidd whose cell phone was lying beside Amber’s bloody body that morning, not M.K.’s.”
Romines also argues that other defendants facing similar charges are given bonds of between $5,000 partially secured to $1 million cash. Notably, he points to Lance Storz, the man who killed three police officers and a K-9 unit during a standoff at Allen in 2022. Storz was being held on a $1 million cash bond before he died by suicide in jail.
Prosecutors have not yet responded to the motion. It will likely be taken up during the next pre-trial conference for the defendants next week.
A copy of the motion is reprinted below:
