It took three trials to finally lock up this career criminal in Henderson, Kentucky

David Ray Byrd shot two cops and – after escaping jail – kidnapped a family, but it took three trials to finally get a conviction that stuck.

And those are only his crimes in Henderson County. He had convictions in other jurisdictions and was a lifelong career criminal. What else can you conclude when his death certificate lists his usual occupation as prison inmate?

I wrote about Byrd several years ago on the 50^th anniversary of his Wild West shoot-out, but thought I ought to update you on the twists and turns he took through the criminal justice system.

He was born Aug. 4, 1928, in Louisville, dropped out of school after the ninth grade, and got in trouble with the law at a relatively young age. I don’t have his full rap sheet, but I know he had a parole violation as early as 1952.

In 1969 he also had a warrant out for his arrest on a parole violation, which caused him to be pulled over by Henderson Police Department Officers Charles Kalichun and Roy Adams near the intersection of Second Street and McKinley Avenue on March 20.

Byrd pulled a gun and ordered the police to halt. According to Byrd’s later testimony, he grabbed Kalichun and held a gun to his back. Kalichun lunged, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 22, 1969, and the gun went off.

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He crouched behind Kalichun at first, but then took off on foot toward Fifth Street. Every HPD officer then on duty, along with two Kentucky State Police cruisers, responded to the scene. “Some estimated as many as 38 shots were fired during the barrage, with pistols and shotguns brought into play,” according to The Gleaner of March 21, 1969.

Kalichun was wounded twice in the abdomen, while Adams was hit in the right leg by a ricochet. Byrd was shot twice in the side and once in the left hand. All three were hospitalized, Kalichun and Byrd in serious condition.

Kalichun was hospitalized for weeks and didn’t return to active duty until July 1. Adams had to return to the hospital several times before his leg wound healed.

Byrd was sent to the state penitentiary at Eddyville but brought back for a hearing in July on his parole violation. He apparently had some skill with locks because on July 15, during the noontime feeding, he took advantage of the confusion to pick the padlock on his cell and ran out the front door of the jail.

He stole a vehicle from a bulk gasoline plant on Adams Street and abandoned it in eastern Henderson County. At first he tried to sleep in a barn, but the mosquitos were eating him up, so he broke into a couple of mobile homes, where he stole a .22 rifle and other items.

He then went to a nearby house, pointed the rifle at Marvin Lee Craig, and told him, “Get ready to take a trip.” Along with Craig’s wife, mother and infant son, they began driving the Craig car to Daviess County.

The operator of the Hambleton Ferry realized something was amiss and alerted authorities in Owensboro. But Byrd managed to elude that dragnet, which in turn alerted the Kentucky State Police post in Elizabethtown. The vehicle was boxed in by KSP troopers just outside of Elizabethtown after a 10-hour manhunt.

He returned to Henderson for his trial on the shoot-out charges. The Gleaner of Oct. 22, 1969, reported the jury was out only 25 minutes before finding him guilty.

“Observers at the trial say they never saw anyone just like Byrd, who was free of tongue when recounting his actions of the past.” That came back to haunt him.

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Circuit Judge Faust Y. Simpson gave him the maximum sentences on both charges, for a total of 26 years in prison.

Faust also telephoned the warden at Eddyville and asked him to send guards to transport Byrd “tonight if possible.” They showed up about 7 p.m.

Byrd appealed that verdict, however, and the state’s highest court said he was entitled to a new trial. That began in October of 1972 but ended in a mistrial when a mistake was made in calling people for jury duty.

The third trial began at 9 a.m. Nov. 15, 1972. The prosecution called 10 witnesses the first day, most of them law enforcement officers. Officer Kalichun testified, but Officer Adams had left the force by then. The testimony Adams had given at the preliminary hearing was instead read into the record.

On the second day, Commonwealth Attorney Ulvester Walker concluded his case by reading a transcript of Byrd’s testimony at his first trial. (Byrd did not testify at his third trial.)

Defense attorney Rudy “Petie” Bryant called Adams as his sole witness. “The main point of his testimony was that Adams told of seeing Byrd get out of the car with his gun in his hand,” The Gleaner reported Nov. 17.

Three inmates had been brought from Eddyville, apparently to testify on Byrd’s behalf, but they did not take the stand.

The jury was given the case right before lunch and began deliberations at 1 p.m. They returned 25 minutes later – the exact amount of time the first jury had deliberated. They also returned the same verdict: guilty of the charge of malicious shooting and wounding and guilty of carrying a concealed deadly weapon.

Byrd was given the maximum sentences on both charges, just like the first trial, and they were to be served consecutively. So, he was looking at 26 years in prison at the age of 44.

He didn’t serve the entire sentence. In 1980 he sued the Department of Corrections for not providing him with proper medical care. He won that case in 1983. The court decision says he had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver as a result of hepatitis.

Byrd’s liver problems developed into cancer, which metastasized and killed him July 1, 1992, at a nursing home in Chandler, Indiana.

Also, The Gleaner of Nov. 19, 1972, reported that former Police Chief L.D. Edwards had died at age 65 in Clarksville, Tennessee. He was police chief 1949 through 1952, which was a turbulent period.

Henderson County underwent a drug scare in mid-July of 1952, when The Gleaner ran a story saying there was a $3-million-a-year drug ring operating here. Edwards had been the source for that story, but once the paper hit the streets he disavowed any knowledge of the drug threat. He maintained he was being set up. The police chief essentially resigned a month later by taking a leave of absence that never ended.

100 YEARS AGO

The Gleaner of Nov. 18, 1922, reported the governor had pardoned Claude D. Borders, largely because he had saved the lives of 43 miners when the No. 7 mine of the West Kentucky Coal Co. near Clay exploded the morning of Aug. 4, 1917. That disaster killed 62 men.

Borders had been sentenced to two years in prison on a manslaughter charge after his car struck and killed 2-year-old Buren C. Porter at the corner of Washington and Julia streets on Sept. 15, 1921. He sped away without stopping. According to the Nov. 18 Associated Press story he “was the first defendant in the state to receive a prison sentence for causing the death of a person by an automobile.”

On Dec. 10, 1933, Borders was hit and killed by a truck while walking along U.S. 41-Alternate near Mannington.

75 YEARS AGO

The Gleaner of Nov. 19, 1947, reported Traylor Bros. of Evansville had won a contract worth $18,855 to repair the dam in Audubon State Park and build a spillway.

Bids on the project had been rejected a month earlier because they were “so much higher than the estimates,” Park Director Russell Dyche said in the Oct. 18 Gleaner.

The dam failed just before midnight May 19, 1946, flooding several hundred acres and causing an estimated $30,000 damage, according to the May 21 Gleaner.

“About two inches of mud was deposited over the ground covered by the water, which reached in places past the Old Evansville Road (into Horseshoe Bend) and on toward the river…. Fish from the lake were lying in fields after the water subsided.”

The dam failure was attributed to rodents burrowing into the sandy soil that supported the spillway. Recent heavy rains raised the lake level and caused water to erode the burrows.

25 YEARS AGO

A long-anticipated expansion of First United Methodist Church at Third and Green streets was given the green light by the city Board of Zoning Adjustment, according to The Gleaner of Nov. 13, 1997.

The $1.7 million project involved building a two-story, 14,000-square-feet addition across the rear of the church. The original main entrance, facing Third Street, required climbing stairs to enter and opened into the sanctuary right in front of the choir.

“It will provide much easier access to the building,” said Ken Curry, one of the church’s building co-chairmen.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.

This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: It took three trials to finally lock up career criminal in Henderson