13 years after a 2-year-old Kentucky boy’s death, trial for suspect is delayed again. Why?

It’s been 13 years since a 2-year-old Kentucky boy was killed and his mother’s boyfriend was charged with murder in the child’s death.

After more than a decade of court delays, the victim’s family is calling for justice while the defendant’s family insists that the man charged with murder is innocent.

While both families want a resolution in the case, the effort has repeatedly hit a wall for a myriad of reasons: recusal of judges; the pandemic; motions filed by both prosecutors and the defense team; and an investigation into the county’s former prosecutor, Ronnie Goldy Jr.

Disputes over what actually happened to 2-year-old Nathaniel Jones have left both the victim and the suspect’s families hoping the case will reach a resolution soon.

13 years of court proceedings with no resolution

According to doctors, Jones died from blunt force trauma injures to his stomach he suffered while in the home shared by his mother and Brian Gallagher, his mother’s boyfriend at the time. Since the beginning, Gallagher has said that a calf kicked the child causing the injuries that ultimately resulted in his death. Gallagher is charged with murder, child abuse and being a persistent felony offender.

Kentucky State Police arrested Jones’ mother, Tiea Jones and her then-boyfriend Gallagher in 2010.

Jones entered an Alford plea in August 2016 to a charge of second degree criminal abuse. Pleading guilty via an “Alford plea” indicates that the defendant still denies committing the crime but admits there is enough evidence to convict them in a trial.

Over the course of 13 years, a trial for Gallagher has been scheduled – and delayed – more than five times.

The case was scheduled for a trial to begin in January 2023, but that was again put off when the defense made a motion for Judge David Barber to recuse himself in late 2022.

When he didn’t, they made another motion for recusal in 2023, which again pushed back the proceedings. If the recusal is granted, this will be the second time a judge has left the case at the defense’s behest.

The case’s original judge, William Lane, recused himself in 2019 after Gallagher made claims he was denied a reasonable bond by the judge in 2010. Gallagher also claimed the judge had personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning proceedings.

Aside from the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, the Rowan County courts faced another uncommon situation which has prolonged the process: an investigation into county prosecutor Ronnie Goldy Jr., who’s accused of soliciting sexually explicit photos and videos of a woman in exchange for helping her resolve her court cases.

Goldy is the commonwealth’s attorney for Bath, Menifee, Montgomery and Rowan counties. The issue arose after a former boyfriend of the woman took screenshots of Facebook messages between her and Goldy from her phone and turned them over to a Louisville attorney.

Goldy was the second prosecutor to take on the case after the first one retired. Special prosecutor Brandon Ison was appointed to the case in 2019, making him the third person to prosecute Gallagher’s case.

Suspect’s father: ‘I want the truth’

Clarence Gallagher, Brian Gallagher’s father, said their team is steadfast on a trial for his son’s freedom and they want the truth to come out surrounding what happened to Jones.

“I am doing this to obviously give Brian a voice, but I want to give the children a voice too,” he said. “This shouldn’t have gone on as long has it has, and this has been a messed up deal from the start.”

He and Brian Gallagher’s attorney, Mike Curtis, said they believe Brian Gallagher is “100% innocent.” Curtis admitted that his team has made several motions which have delayed the trial’s proceedings.

Clarence Gallagher suggested that key evidence is missing or being withheld which could speak to his son’s innocence.

In addition, Clarence Gallagher said the child’s autopsy says the manner of death was undetermined, and questioned how the state can allege “abuse,” or “murder” without a more specified manner of death for Jones.

He also alleges his son and his former girlfriend both passed polygraph tests when they stated they had nothing to do with the death, or any abuse of Jones — and were expected to be cleared as suspects.

“This is just crazy, and it has gone on for 13 years – I want the truth,” he said.

Family of victim wants ‘to see some justice’

Taylor and Don May, the father and sister of Nathaniel Jones, said they don’t want people to forget about justice for their loved one.

Before the January trial was canceled, they said they were hopeful it would happen, but were “cautiously optimistic.”

“We can’t lose hope ever that somewhere, someday there will be some justice for him,” Don May said. “We can’t lose hope for that, but we have to be realistic about how the court system works and they have failed to work in this case. I am sure they are doing the best they can, and sure there are extenuating circumstances, but I just want to see some justice for (Nathaniel).”

The May family said it has been difficult to get updates from prosecutors on the status of the case. The family said it was hard to get in contact with the prosecutors early on, but they eventually stopped returning calls altogether.

“We tried to make contact with anyone, and the case just had gone cold for a while,” Don May said.

The family said communication about the case has improved since they became aware that Ison was appointed special prosecutor.

Ison said it is uncommon to not have contact with the victim’s family considering the nature of the charge, but the situation is more complicated because the mother of the victim was involved.

Ison said his team is just now getting to the prospect of a trial where they would get input from the father of the victim.

“My time so far in the case has been mainly about making sure we had all the discovery and that the defendant had a copy of all of it,” he said. “I did not get appointed special prosecutor until I believe around August 2019, it wasn’t long after I got appointed that a different judge was assigned, then Covid happened and we really weren’t able to do much up until this year,” Ison said in an email to the Herald-Leader.

“...It has been challenging to get up to speed on the case considering the lengthy history. It makes it harder because of the type of case where the discovery is a large amount of documentation.”

After the trial was again delayed in January, Brian Gallagher is not expected to appear in court again until June. He has been out on bond since 2010.