Police seek motive for why Palm Coast man fatally shot woman in Kentucky

Patricio G. Balona, The Daytona Beach News-Journal
·2 min read
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The McCracken County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky said Robert Pannell, 55, of Palm Coast, fatally shot a hotel worker in Kentucky. He was traveling to see his family in Illinois and had stopped at a hotel in Paducah where he shot the woman, sheriff's detectives said.
The McCracken County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky said Robert Pannell, 55, of Palm Coast, fatally shot a hotel worker in Kentucky. He was traveling to see his family in Illinois and had stopped at a hotel in Paducah where he shot the woman, sheriff's detectives said.

Authorities in Kentucky have yet to come up with a motive for why a Palm Coast man traveling through the state allegedly shot and killed a hotel employee in Paducah on Feb. 11.

McCracken County Sheriff Ryan Norman said on Monday that Robert Pannell, 55, was charged with first-degree murder after the hotel employee, a woman, who was being kept on life support until her organs could be donated, died.

Pannell, who was a guest at the hotel in Paducah, shot the employee multiple times in the head and body at 9:48 a.m., officials in McCracken County said.

No other gunshot victims were found in the hotel, Norman said.

The McCracken County Sheriff's Office initially charged Pannell with first-degree assault, two counts of fourth-degree assault, and four counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. The Paducah Police Department also charged Pannell with third-degree assault, second-degree menacing, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the sheriff said.

Pannell was being held Monday in the McCracken County Jail.

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Norman said investigators are working to determine why Pannell, who they believe was passing through the city, shot the woman.

"We believe he was traveling to Illinois where he has family, but again we are still investigating," Norman said.

According to the sheriff's office, 9-1-1 dispatchers in Paducah were called on Feb. 11 multiple times about a possible active shooter at a hotel on John Puryear Drive.

Callers reported that a man, later identified as Pannell, was firing a gun in the hotel, sheriff's investigators said.

Deputies from the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office and officers from the Paducah Police Department responded to the hotel. A deputy, who arrived first began searching the hotel for the gunman and located the woman on the first floor of the hotel, officials said.

A Paducah police officer located Pannell outside the hotel and detained him in the parking lot.

An investigation revealed that just before he shot the hotel employee, Pannell had assaulted a man and woman in the hotel's parking lot because they could not give him a cigarette lighter, detectives said.

After assaulting the couple in the parking lot, Pannell went inside the hotel armed with a handgun, walked down a hallway and shot the hotel employee. Pannell also indiscriminately fired multiple rounds with people nearby, investigators said.

At some point, Pannell threw his handgun inside the lobby of the hotel.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Palm Coast man traveling through Kentucky shoots woman at hotel