MOREHEAD, Ky. (Court TV) — A Kentucky man was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the murders of a woman and her teenage daughter last year.
Joshua Cottrell pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. (Kentucky Dept. of Corrections)
Joshua Cottrell, 44, appeared in court on Tuesday, where he changed his plea to guilty in the deaths of Kayla Blake, 37, and her daughter, Kennedi McWorter, 13.
Blake and McWorter were found murdered in their home in Morehead, Kentucky, in September 2025, after a coworker of Blake’s became concerned when she didn’t show up for work. First responders found Blake’s body in a back bedroom, where she had been stabbed and bludgeoned. McWorter’s body was found across the hall with stab wounds.
Investigators said at the time of Cottrell’s arrest that he had moved the bodies after killing the victims; when he was arrested at a Paducah-area hospital, he had blood on his clothes.
Cottrell, who had initially pleaded not guilty in the case, entered guilty pleas for two counts of murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence. As part of the agreement, he had waived a presentencing investigation; he was immediately sentenced to life in prison.
“He needs to be thankful the mother did not want to go to trial and see all of the evidence of her daughter and granddaughter, because that’s the only thing that really saved him,” Blake’s friend, Lona Kiser, said, according to WKYT. “I feel like he’s begging for his life, just like they were begging for their life as he was murdering them.”
Cottrell’s defense told the court during Tuesday’s hearing that he felt remorse; Cottrell declined the opportunity to speak, according to reports.
“Why wouldn’t he just get up and say it himself to his family, to everybody that deserves to hear he has any emotion behind it? He didn’t even listen,” Blake’s friend, Alyshia Brummett, told WKYT. “I don’t feel that he has any remorse.”
At the time of her death, Blake was a mother of two and a nurse, WLEX reported. Blake worked at a recovery institute, helping addicts overcome their addictions.
Investigators did not specify any relationship between the defendant and the victims. WKYT reported at the time of the killings that Cottrell and Blake were in a relationship.
Cottrell had been in trouble before. He served 17 years in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree manslaughter in a 2003 incident. In that case, 36-year-old Richie Phillips was found stuffed in a suitcase floating in the Rough River Lake. Cottrell said he had acted in self-defense because he feared being raped by Phillips.
