PRESTONSBURG, Ky. (Court TV) — A man accused of killing a woman found stabbed to death says that new DNA testing proves he isn’t the killer and is asking a judge to release him from house arrest.
Michael McKinney III is charged with the murder of Amber Spradlin. (Rowan County Detention Center)
Michael “MK” McKinney III, 26, is charged with murder and complicity in tampering with physical evidence in the death of Amber Spradlin, 38. Spradlin was found dead inside the home McKinney shared with his father; two other men were also inside the home when Spradlin was killed, prosecutors have said.
In a new motion asking for McKinney to be released from house arrest, his attorney, Steven Romines, said that a new lab report shows that DNA found on the victim doesn’t match the defendant. “At various points throughout the procedural history of this case, both parties have discussed the possibility that the Kentucky State Police laboratory could return DNA results that were exculpatory for the Defendant,” Romines wrote, arguing that is what has now happened.
The witness credited with finding Spradlin’s body and alerting others in the house to what had happened was Roy Kidd, a friend of the victim. “Roy and Amber’s DNA has been found mixed together, with extreme statistical weight, on items of damning importance,” Romines’ motion said. “Unlike the moderate likelihood ratio suggesting nonspecific Y-STR alleles from a McKinney within a mix on a swab from Amber’s fingernail, the results against Roy are individualized and numerically overwhelming, not to mention multifaceted. Roy’s DNA was found on Amber, literally from her head to her feet.”
“The motion’s account of the laboratory results is selective, and, in several respects, inaccurate,” prosecutor Brent Turner wrote in his response to the defense’s filing. Turner said that Kidd’s DNA was not found on any clothing Spradlin was wearing. Turner conceded that Kidd’s DNA was found on one of the six cuttings taken from Spradlin’s shoes, but noted that the victim wasn’t wearing the shoes when she was found. “Nor is Roy Kidd’s DNA on that one sample surprising,” Turner said. “He had a bleeding cut under his chin that night, and his DNA was identified on items belonging to others in the home.”
“Amber was stabbed with such brutal force that the blade broke off inside her neck,” Romines wrote in his motion. “In order to do that, the killer probably gripped her hair. This may explain why swabs from Amber’s hair clip returned a DNA mixture with a 40 quadrillion likelihood ratio for the inclusion of Roy Kidd’s DNA profile.”
A billboard put up by Amber Spradlin’s family called for justice in her murder. (WLEX)
Turner challenged that as well: “The defendant’s motion asserts that Amber was stabbed with such force that the blade broke off in her neck. Yet none of her DNA was found on the clothing of the man the motion claims was the killer.” Turner further said Kidd told police he spent the evening with the victim and, when he first found her, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “The motion’s suggestion that the killer gripped Amber’s hair is speculation, not science,” Turner said.
Prosecutors said they’re confident that McKinney was the killer, in part because he was the “only man in the home” who left the property before her body was found. Surveillance captured him leaving at 8:30 a.m. When police interviewed him, he had marks on his arms that the prosecution’s expert identified as fingernail scratches.
McKinney’s father, dentist Michael McKinney II, 58, and a fourth man who was in the home that night, Josh Mullins, 26, have also been charged with complicity in tampering with physical evidence for allegedly destroying the handle from the broken knife, cleaning the victim’s blood from the scene and destroying evidence from surveillance cameras inside the home.
MK McKinney’s trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection in January 2027.