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The Murder of Amber Spradlin · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture the absolute eerie quiet of early morning in eastern Kentucky.
0:05
Speaker 1: Like imagine a sprawling, wealthy estate sitting completely silent on Arkansas.
0:11
Speaker 2: Creek Road, right, just totally isolated.
0:14
Speaker 1: Exactly inside this house, six people have just returned from
0:18
Speaker 1: a night of heavy drinking. But fast forward just a
0:21
Speaker 1: few hours, the sun comes up and the interior of
0:24
Speaker 1: that house has become a literal nightmare.
0:26
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
0:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, one person is dead on the living room couch
0:29
Speaker 1: with a brutally severed throat. Another person is wandering the
0:32
Speaker 1: upstairs halls, completely disoriented and covered in blood. And get this,
0:37
Speaker 1: the homes security cameras, the very ones pointed directly at
0:40
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime, have been surgically ripped from
0:43
Speaker 1: the walls.
0:43
Speaker 2: It's just a profoundly chilling image.
0:45
Speaker 3: Yeah.
0:46
Speaker 2: You know, when you walk into a scene like that
0:47
Speaker 2: as an investigator, the environment instantly tells a story, right speaks, volumes,
0:52
Speaker 2: it really does. Whatever happened in that room wasn't just
0:54
Speaker 2: a sudden, uncontrollable tragedy. I mean, it is a chaotic
0:58
Speaker 2: burst of violence followed by a deeply calculated, methodical response.
1:02
Speaker 1: And that response is exactly what we are untangling today.
1:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to our deep dive into the notorious case of
1:10
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Amber Spradlin.
1:11
Speaker 2: We've got a lot to cover today.
1:13
Speaker 1: We really do. We've pulled together a massive stack of
1:15
Speaker 1: sources for you. We've got investigative breakdowns, court records, nine
1:19
Speaker 1: to eleven transcripts, and local reporting. And our mission today
1:23
Speaker 1: is to act as your shortcut to being well informed
1:26
Speaker 1: on this story.
1:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are reconstructing the missing hours of June eighteenth,
1:30
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three in Floyd County.
1:32
Speaker 1: Kentucky because we need to understand not just a murder,
1:35
Speaker 1: but the complex mechanics of forensic backlogs, civil conspiracy, and
1:41
Speaker 1: a grieving families fight against a literal, two tier justice system.
1:44
Speaker 2: Well, to really understand the mechanics of this case, we
1:46
Speaker 2: have to start with the sociology of Floyd.
1:48
Speaker 1: County, Okay set the stage for us.
1:50
Speaker 2: So, Eastern Kentucky is renowned for its tight knit communities, right,
1:54
Speaker 2: but it is also an area heavily burdened by severe poverty. Right,
1:57
Speaker 2: And from an investigative standpoint, widespread economic struggle creates a
2:01
Speaker 2: very specific power vacuum. The few families who hold the
2:04
Speaker 2: local wealth, they hold massive outsized influence.
2:08
Speaker 1: Because they're the ones providing the jobs exactly.
2:10
Speaker 2: They are the major employers, the landlords, the medical providers.
2:14
Speaker 2: That extreme disparity in power isn't just background context here,
2:18
Speaker 2: it is the actual engine driving the decisions made on
2:21
Speaker 2: the morning of the murder.
2:23
Speaker 1: Which makes the victim's presence in that house all the
2:25
Speaker 1: more fascinating, honestly. So let's talk about Amber Spreadlin.
2:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, her background is so important here.
2:31
Speaker 1: It is she had endured an incredibly difficult life. By
2:35
Speaker 1: her early twenties, she had suffered the loss of her mother,
2:38
Speaker 1: her sister, and her father.
2:39
Speaker 2: That is just an unimaginable volume of tragedy.
2:42
Speaker 1: It really is, and it left her with debilitating anxiety.
2:46
Speaker 1: For years. She stayed sheltered with her grandparents. She basically
2:49
Speaker 1: survived on routine like She called her aunt Missi every
2:51
Speaker 1: single morning at nine zero zero am sharp. That was
2:54
Speaker 1: her tether to safety.
2:56
Speaker 2: And in victimology, a strict, unbreakable routine like that is
3:00
Speaker 2: crucial data point. How So, well, when a victim is
3:03
Speaker 2: highly routine oriented, their absence is an immediate glaring alarm bell,
3:08
Speaker 2: a missed nine zero zero am phone call from someone
3:11
Speaker 2: like Amber singles to her family that something is catastrophically wrong.
3:15
Speaker 1: Right. They know right away it's not just her sleeping
3:17
Speaker 1: in exactly.
3:18
Speaker 2: But by twenty twenty three, at thirty eight years old,
3:21
Speaker 2: Amber was finally starting to step out of her comfort zone.
3:24
Speaker 2: You know, she got her own place. She started working
3:26
Speaker 2: as a hostess at a popular Prestonburg restaurant called brick House.
3:30
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the night of Saturday, June seventeenth.
3:33
Speaker 1: Amber decides to invite an acquaintance, a fifty one year
3:36
Speaker 1: old radiology tech named Roy Kidd, out for drinks at
3:39
Speaker 1: a bar called Season's In, and the bar owner's brother
3:43
Speaker 1: happens to be drinking with them. His name is doctor
3:46
Speaker 1: Michael McKinney the Second. He is a fifty five year old,
3:49
Speaker 1: incredibly wealthy local dentist.
3:51
Speaker 2: And he's a major player in town.
3:52
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. He also happens to own the brick House restaurant,
3:56
Speaker 1: meaning he is actually Amber's boss. Right But at four am,
4:00
Speaker 1: the bar is well past closing time and Michael invites
4:04
Speaker 1: a small group back to his estate for an after party.
4:07
Speaker 1: It's Amber, Roy, Michael Michael's twenty three year old son,
4:11
Speaker 1: m K. A basement tenant named Josh and Josh's girlfriend Lauren.
4:15
Speaker 2: That's the group that goes back to the house.
4:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, those six people. But here's my question for you,
4:19
Speaker 1: because this really stuck out to me. Why does a
4:22
Speaker 1: woman with severe anxiety who is incredibly protective of her
4:26
Speaker 1: routine go to an after party at four am with
4:30
Speaker 1: a group of older men.
4:31
Speaker 2: That's a great question, and it usually comes down to
4:34
Speaker 2: a psychological phenomenon known as the halo effect combined with
4:38
Speaker 2: perceived authority.
4:39
Speaker 1: The halo effect.
4:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a small town, a wealthy doctor who owns
4:43
Speaker 2: multiple businesses is seen as a pillar of the community.
4:47
Speaker 2: Add to that the corporate hierarchy. I mean, he is
4:50
Speaker 2: literally her employer.
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Speaker 1: So she sees him as safe.
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Speaker 2: Exactly to Amber, getting an invite to the McKinney state
4:56
Speaker 2: was likely the small town equivalent of being pulled behind
4:58
Speaker 2: the velvet rope at a VIP Hollywood party.
5:00
Speaker 1: Wow.
5:01
Speaker 2: But with the added psychological safety net of being with
5:04
Speaker 2: her boss.
5:04
Speaker 3: Wow.
5:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, her brain likely told her this man employs me,
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Speaker 2: he's a respected doctor, I am safe. The perceived authority
5:12
Speaker 2: basically temporarily overrode her natural survival instincts.
5:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes total sense. But that illusion of safety
5:19
Speaker 1: shatters once they relocate to the basement of the McKinney house.
5:22
Speaker 2: It really does.
5:23
Speaker 1: This brings us to the chronological timeline of Sunday morning.
5:27
Speaker 1: And I want to walk through the mechanics of what
5:28
Speaker 1: happens next with you because the anomalies are just staggering.
5:31
Speaker 2: The timeline is wild. Let's get into it, okay.
5:33
Speaker 1: So just before six part zher am MK, the twenty
5:37
Speaker 1: three year old son calls nine to one one. He
5:40
Speaker 1: tells dispatch that Roy is completely intoxicated and bleeding profusely
5:44
Speaker 1: and he needs to be taken to the.
5:48
Speaker 2: Drunk tank right a medical call.
5:49
Speaker 1: But before dispatch can even mobilize Michael, the father gets
5:53
Speaker 1: on the phone. He physically takes the phone and verbally
5:56
Speaker 1: cancels the call, telling the dispatcher I've got this under control,
6:00
Speaker 1: no response is needed, just shuts it down. Yes, start
6:03
Speaker 1: right there. How does a dispatcher legally just say okay,
6:08
Speaker 1: never mind to a medical emergency because a third party
6:11
Speaker 1: said so.
6:11
Speaker 2: I know it sounds crazy, but it exposes a massive
6:14
Speaker 2: vulnerability in standard operating procedures for emergency dispatch.
6:18
Speaker 1: Really, how does that work?
6:19
Speaker 2: Well? In many rural counties, dispatchers are dealing with severely
6:22
Speaker 2: limited resources, like maybe they only have one or two
6:25
Speaker 2: patrol cars for an entire sector.
6:27
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
6:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, unless a caller reports a confirmed felony in progress,
6:32
Speaker 2: dispatchers often have to trioge. If the homeowner takes the
6:36
Speaker 2: phone and calmly asserts that the situation is a non
6:39
Speaker 2: lethal private matter, like an intoxicated guest who simply felcaid,
6:44
Speaker 2: the dispatcher is actually legally permitted to clear the call
6:47
Speaker 2: to keep resources open.
6:48
Speaker 3: That is terrifying, it is, but from an investigative perspective,
6:53
Speaker 3: the father physically intercepting the phone from his son establishes
6:57
Speaker 3: a really damning behavioral.
6:58
Speaker 1: Pattern that they hand internally exactly.
7:02
Speaker 2: It shows the McKinneys manage their own crises totally outside
7:05
Speaker 2: the purview.
7:05
Speaker 1: Of the law, and it leaves a massive blind spot
7:08
Speaker 1: for what actually occurred around six miliaam, because, according to
7:11
Speaker 1: witness statements, things supposedly quiet down after that canceled call.
7:14
Speaker 1: Supposedly right between six mid ooh and seven mouto am,
7:18
Speaker 1: Roy stumbles upstairs to pass out in a bedroom. Lauren
7:21
Speaker 1: and Josh go to sleep in the basement, and Lauren
7:23
Speaker 1: claims that when she left the living room. Amber was alive,
7:26
Speaker 1: well and resting on the couch.
7:28
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's look at the math there. That means
7:30
Speaker 2: by seven letter zero am, the only people unaccounted for
7:33
Speaker 2: are Michael and his son MK. That drastically narrows our
7:37
Speaker 2: suspect pool. We have two conscious men and one sleeping woman.
7:40
Speaker 1: So then at eight thirty am, neighborhood surveillance captures MK's
7:45
Speaker 1: blue truck leaving the area. Okay, then we hit ten
7:48
Speaker 1: thirty am. Amber is lying dead on the couch, But
7:52
Speaker 1: Michael McKinney does not dial nine to one one. Instead,
7:56
Speaker 1: he picks up his phone and makes an eight minute
7:58
Speaker 1: call to Randy Woods.
7:59
Speaker 2: And who is Randy was?
8:00
Speaker 1: Randy Was is the off booty chief of police for Prestenburg.
8:04
Speaker 2: Wow?
8:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, let me pause you there, because Prestenburg is
8:07
Speaker 1: a completely different jurisdiction. The McKinney house is in Martin, Kentucky.
8:11
Speaker 1: Oh man, is there any legitimate, innocent reason a homeowner
8:15
Speaker 1: finds a brutalized body in their living room and spends
8:18
Speaker 1: eight full minutes chatting with the police chief from the
8:21
Speaker 1: next town over.
8:22
Speaker 2: Zero, I mean, there is no innocent operational mechanism that
8:26
Speaker 2: explains that call.
8:27
Speaker 1: Right.
8:27
Speaker 2: If you are a terrified, innocent person, human instinct drives
8:31
Speaker 2: you to dial the three universal numbers for emergency help.
8:33
Speaker 2: You do not scroll through your contact for a specific
8:36
Speaker 2: buddy in law enforcement who doesn't even have jurisdiction over
8:38
Speaker 2: your house. It's just a municipal power structures. This is
8:42
Speaker 2: exactly how local oligarchs operate. They don't call the system
8:46
Speaker 2: to report a crime. They call their peers to manage
8:49
Speaker 2: the fallout.
8:50
Speaker 1: And eight minutes is a long time.
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Speaker 2: It's a lifetime in that emergency. An eight minute duration
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Speaker 2: is more than enough time to strategize, seek legal advice,
8:59
Speaker 2: or align a narrative before the official record begins.
9:02
Speaker 1: And it isn't until ten point three seven am that
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Speaker 1: Michael finally dials nine to one one. And the transcript
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Speaker 1: of this call is baffling.
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Speaker 2: What was he saying?
9:10
Speaker 1: He tells the dispatcher, there's a girl on my couch
9:13
Speaker 1: that's dead. Looks like somebody's coming to the house and
9:15
Speaker 1: murdered her. Her throat slit, there's blood everywhere, okay, But
9:18
Speaker 1: when first responders arrived, the visual reality of the scene
9:21
Speaker 1: completely contradicts his statement.
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Speaker 2: This is where forensic observation tears a massive hole in
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Speaker 2: the official story.
9:27
Speaker 1: Yes, tell him about the couch.
9:29
Speaker 2: Right. So, Amber was found sitting upright, slumped forward. She
9:34
Speaker 2: had been stabbed twelve times, but her slumping posture completely
9:38
Speaker 2: concealed the devastating wound to her neck.
9:40
Speaker 3: Wow.
9:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. First responders officially noted that you could not see
9:43
Speaker 2: her throat was slit just by standing in the room.
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Speaker 1: So how did Michael know her throat was slit before
9:49
Speaker 1: the police even moved.
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Speaker 2: Her body precisely? It suggests he had intimate, upclose knowledge
9:55
Speaker 2: of the trauma before.
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Speaker 1: Making that call, because there's no way he just glanced
9:59
Speaker 1: at the couch and saw exactly.
10:01
Speaker 2: And the sheer physical force of the attack adds another
10:04
Speaker 2: layer of complexity here. She was stabbed with such brutal
10:08
Speaker 2: velocity that the metal blade of the knife actually snapped off.
10:12
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it remained deeply embedded in her cervical.
10:15
Speaker 1: Spine, which introduces the most calculated aspect of the entire morning.
10:20
Speaker 1: The missing evidence right the cleanup, because investigators didn't find
10:24
Speaker 1: a broken knife handle on the floor. Instead, they found
10:27
Speaker 1: a completely intact, different knife deliberately shoved into the cushions
10:31
Speaker 1: of the couch next to Amber, The actual handle matching
10:33
Speaker 1: the blade in her neck had completely.
10:35
Speaker 2: Vanished, along with the digital eyes of the house. Yes,
10:38
Speaker 2: the cameras, right, the McKinneys had a robust security system
10:42
Speaker 2: with cameras pointed directly at the living room couch and
10:44
Speaker 2: the basement bar. By the time law enforcement crossed the threshold, those.
10:48
Speaker 1: Cameras were gone, just totally gone.
10:50
Speaker 2: The DVR system was detached, the hard drive storing the
10:53
Speaker 2: footage had been meticulously unhooked, removed, and spirited away from
10:58
Speaker 2: the property.
10:59
Speaker 1: That is just I mean, it's if so brazen. Let's
11:01
Speaker 1: contrast that surgical precision with our other major player here.
11:05
Speaker 2: Roy Oh. Roy.
11:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, Roy wakes up between seven points and nine zeros
11:09
Speaker 1: er am entirely covered in his own blood from a
11:11
Speaker 1: drunken fall, as well as his own urine and feces.
11:14
Speaker 2: Just completely incapacitated.
11:16
Speaker 1: Completely disorientate. He later takes a police polygraph and fails
11:20
Speaker 1: it spectacularly on four major questions, including did you stab her?
11:25
Speaker 2: Which is obviously a huge red flag.
11:27
Speaker 1: Right, and the defense team for the McKinneys points heavily
11:30
Speaker 1: at Roy, noting his failed polygraph and the fact that
11:33
Speaker 1: his phone was found near Amber's body.
11:34
Speaker 2: Look, a failed polygraph certainly casts a dark shadow. But
11:38
Speaker 2: let's break down the physical mechanics of this crime scene.
11:40
Speaker 1: Please do.
11:41
Speaker 2: A man who is a ten out of ten drunk
11:43
Speaker 2: who is literally covered in his own waist lacks basic
11:46
Speaker 2: motor function. Erasing a digital footprint requires fine motor skills
11:51
Speaker 2: and cognitive sequences.
11:52
Speaker 1: You have to know what you're doing exactly.
11:54
Speaker 2: You have to locate the DVR, systematically, detach the power
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Speaker 2: in daity cables, extract a hard drive, locate a secondary
12:01
Speaker 2: weapon to plant in the couch, and successfully dispose of
12:04
Speaker 2: the primary murder weapon and the electronics. A blackout drunk
12:08
Speaker 2: person is entirely incapable of executing a tech savvy multi
12:12
Speaker 2: step cover up. That level of sanitization requires a sober, rational,
12:17
Speaker 2: adrenaline fueled mind.
12:19
Speaker 1: That fundamentally shifts how we view the scene. It transforms
12:22
Speaker 1: it from a messy, drunken brawl into a highly coordinated conspiracy.
12:26
Speaker 1: It really does, and the physical evidence trailing MK backs
12:28
Speaker 1: that up. Three days post murder, MK goes to the
12:31
Speaker 1: state police to give a DNA sample. Investigators immediately photograph
12:35
Speaker 1: fresh parallel scratch marks trailing down both of his arms.
12:39
Speaker 1: They look exactly like defensive claw.
12:41
Speaker 2: Mark because Amber fought for her life. The autopsy confirms
12:44
Speaker 2: severe defensive wounds on her hands, and the medical examiner
12:47
Speaker 2: successfully collected biological material from deep under her fingernails.
12:51
Speaker 1: Which is huge. But this is where the momentum of
12:54
Speaker 1: the investigation just slams into a brick wall. It takes
12:58
Speaker 1: eight agonizing months for the Kentucky State Police crime lab
13:02
Speaker 1: to process that single DNA.
13:04
Speaker 2: Swab eight months?
13:05
Speaker 1: Eight months. How does a high profile murder case with
13:09
Speaker 1: a suspects DNA under the victim's fingernails sit in a
13:12
Speaker 1: queue for almost a year.
13:14
Speaker 2: It basically comes down to the chronic underfunding of state
13:19
Speaker 2: forensic infrastructure. You see, State crime labs do not operate
13:23
Speaker 2: like the rapid fire labs you see on television.
13:26
Speaker 1: Right, It's not cs high.
13:27
Speaker 2: Not at all. They suffer from severe staffing shortages and
13:31
Speaker 2: just overwhelming volume. Because of this, they utilize a mechanism
13:34
Speaker 2: called batch processing.
13:35
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
13:36
Speaker 2: They wait until they have a large enough quantity of
13:38
Speaker 2: similar biological samples from multiple cases across the entire state.
13:42
Speaker 2: Then they run them all at once through the chemical regents,
13:44
Speaker 2: which are credibly expensive.
13:46
Speaker 1: So if you're the first one in the batch, if.
13:48
Speaker 2: Your sample arrives at the wrong time in the fiscal cycle,
13:50
Speaker 2: it just sits in a freezer. It is a bureaucratic
13:53
Speaker 2: bottleneck that paralyzes justice.
13:55
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, when that result finally clears the bottleneck eight
13:59
Speaker 1: months later, it is a YSTR match to the McKinney
14:03
Speaker 1: paternal line.
14:04
Speaker 2: This is a crucial piece of evidence.
14:06
Speaker 1: It is, and I want to make sure we understand
14:08
Speaker 1: the exact science here because MK's defense attorney claims this
14:11
Speaker 1: is incredibly weak evidence.
14:13
Speaker 2: Well, the defense will always attack YSTR. But let's explain
14:15
Speaker 2: how it actually works. Think of standard autosomal DNA like
14:19
Speaker 2: a license plate. If you run it, it gives you
14:22
Speaker 2: the exact unique vehicle. Okay, y SDR testing is different.
14:26
Speaker 2: It isolates the Y chromosome, which has passed virtually unchanged
14:30
Speaker 2: from father to son. So y STR is in a
14:33
Speaker 2: license plate. It's the make and model of the car.
14:35
Speaker 1: How that makes sense right?
14:37
Speaker 2: It tells investigators definitively, a McKinney man left this DNA
14:41
Speaker 2: under her fingernails. It cannot differentiate between Michael the father and.
14:45
Speaker 1: MK the son, But they were the only two McKinney
14:47
Speaker 1: men in the house exactly.
14:48
Speaker 2: So, since they were the only two mckinna men in
14:50
Speaker 2: that house, it locks the suspect pool in a vice
14:53
Speaker 2: grip armed with.
14:54
Speaker 1: That make and model, the scratch marks, and the timeline
14:57
Speaker 1: of his truck leaving the scene. MK is officially charged
15:00
Speaker 1: with Amber's murder and eight counts of evidence tampering.
15:04
Speaker 2: A massive step forward.
15:05
Speaker 1: Yes, Michael and the basement tenant, Josh are also charged
15:08
Speaker 1: with evidence tampering. The prosecution's mechanical theory is straightforward. MK
15:14
Speaker 1: committed the murder and then the three of them operated
15:16
Speaker 1: as a unit to bleach the sinks, dismantle the camera network,
15:19
Speaker 1: and vanished the knife handle before the other guests woke up.
15:22
Speaker 2: And Michael McKinney's counter argument is that he is basically
15:25
Speaker 2: the victim of a localized witch hunt. He claims the
15:28
Speaker 2: timeline is circumstantial, that the ystr could just be transferred
15:33
Speaker 2: DNA from Amber simply resting on a family couch, and
15:36
Speaker 2: that social media has contaminated the jury pool to the
15:39
Speaker 2: point of ruining his family's reputation.
15:41
Speaker 1: But the community's outrage on social media isn't just about
15:44
Speaker 1: the McKinneys. It's rooted in a deep historical distrust of
15:48
Speaker 1: local law enforcement.
15:49
Speaker 2: Which brings us back to that phone call.
15:51
Speaker 1: Yes, that eight minute phone call to Chief Randy Woods.
15:55
Speaker 1: According to Amber's cousin, early on in the investigation, Chief
15:59
Speaker 1: Woods told old a family friend that Amber wasn't murdered
16:02
Speaker 1: at all.
16:03
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
16:03
Speaker 1: Nope. He allegedly claims she just aspirated on her own
16:07
Speaker 1: vomit and that the family needed to quote settle.
16:11
Speaker 2: Down, which is just an astonishing narrative to push when
16:15
Speaker 2: the medical examiner has a body with a severed throat
16:18
Speaker 2: and a knife blade lodged in the cervical spine. It
16:21
Speaker 2: reveals a chilling reflex within the municipal power structure to
16:25
Speaker 2: instantly minimize violence when wealth is involved. And we have
16:28
Speaker 2: to look at the fallout here. Just five days after
16:31
Speaker 2: Amber's murder, Chief Woods abruptly resigned five days. Yeah, he
16:35
Speaker 2: cited the emotional toll of a previous tragedy, but the timing,
16:39
Speaker 2: coupled with his involvement in that ten thirty am phone call,
16:42
Speaker 2: raises massive red flags about his operational integrity.
16:45
Speaker 1: It really paints a terrifying picture of a two tier
16:48
Speaker 1: justice system and For Amber's family, this isn't even their
16:51
Speaker 1: first encounter with it. Oh yeah. Ambers's own mother, Sharon,
16:55
Speaker 1: died under highly suspicious circumstances back in nineteen eighty eight
16:58
Speaker 1: in a Prestonburg. She was found hanging from a window
17:02
Speaker 1: and the local authorities rapidly closed it out as an accident. Wow,
17:06
Speaker 1: and they aren't alone. Our sources point to Kristen Smith,
17:09
Speaker 1: a thirty three year old mother found dead in Martin
17:11
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one while dating a local official that
17:14
Speaker 1: was quickly ruled a suicide. Candy Green Gonzalez vanished the
17:19
Speaker 1: very same day.
17:20
Speaker 2: The sociological pattern here is it's just impossible to ignore.
17:23
Speaker 1: It's a trend.
17:24
Speaker 2: The locals believe there is an established playbook in Floyd County.
17:27
Speaker 2: You know, vulnerable women meet tragic ends under murky circumstances,
17:31
Speaker 2: and the local authorities close ranks, seal the files, and
17:34
Speaker 2: let the cases gather dust to protect their economic peers.
17:37
Speaker 1: But the sheer brutality of Amber's case broke the playbook.
17:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it was too graphic to sweep away. Yet
17:42
Speaker 1: justice is still stalled because of the labs. Yep, the
17:45
Speaker 1: trial is delayed because the State Crime Lab is still
17:48
Speaker 1: so backlogged that thirty three additional items of evidence are
17:52
Speaker 1: currently sitting on shelves waiting for analysis. MK sits in jail,
17:57
Speaker 1: but Michael McKinney is out on house arrest. He is
17:59
Speaker 1: still legally allowed to operate his dental practice and run
18:03
Speaker 1: his restaurant.
18:04
Speaker 2: The optics of that for the grieving family must be
18:06
Speaker 2: absolutely agonizing unbearable.
18:09
Speaker 1: But they are utilizing a different legal mechanism to force accountability.
18:14
Speaker 1: Amber's family has filed a massive civil suit alleging negligence
18:18
Speaker 1: and civil conspiracy against the McKinneys, Roy Kid Chief Woods,
18:22
Speaker 1: and the police department.
18:23
Speaker 2: That's a huge undertaking.
18:25
Speaker 1: It is, how does a family actually prove a police
18:28
Speaker 1: department is liable in a civil conspiracy?
18:30
Speaker 2: Well, it requires proving a systemic failure in the duty
18:33
Speaker 2: of care. In a civil conspiracy, the burden of proof
18:36
Speaker 2: is slightly lower than in criminal court. Okay, you don't
18:39
Speaker 2: have to prove they wielded the knife. You have to
18:42
Speaker 2: prove they intentionally colluded to obstruct the truth or failed
18:45
Speaker 2: to enact their mandated duties. So the family is arguing
18:48
Speaker 2: that a recent poorly managed switch in the nine to
18:51
Speaker 2: one one dispatch systems left the county vulnerable. They basically
18:55
Speaker 2: had to demonstrate mechanically that if the police dispatch had
18:58
Speaker 2: functioned correctly and officers had responded to MK's six point
19:02
Speaker 2: am call, overriding Michael's verbal cancelation, law enforcement would have
19:07
Speaker 2: entered that house while Amber was still alive.
19:09
Speaker 3: Wow.
19:10
Speaker 1: And they are also fighting to fix the underlying forensic rot.
19:13
Speaker 1: The family is lobbying the state legislature to pass Amber's Law,
19:17
Speaker 1: which would aggressively mandate funding increases for state crime labs.
19:21
Speaker 2: That would be incredible.
19:22
Speaker 1: The goal is to eliminate the batch processing bottlenecks, so
19:25
Speaker 1: no family ever waits eight months for a basic DNA
19:28
Speaker 1: read again. And this Justice for Amber Facebook page has
19:32
Speaker 1: evolved into a full blown clearinghouse. Citizens across eastern Kentucky
19:36
Speaker 1: are using it to post names, cross reference evidence, and
19:39
Speaker 1: demand investigations into their own forgotten cases.
19:42
Speaker 2: You know, when you step back and view this case
19:44
Speaker 2: from thirty thousand feet, it serves as a stark, sobering
19:47
Speaker 2: lesson on the fragility of the justice system.
19:49
Speaker 1: It really does.
19:50
Speaker 2: We consume so much media that portrays forensics and law
19:53
Speaker 2: enforcement as this impenetrable, flawless machine. But the reality is
19:59
Speaker 2: that the machine is operate by human beings. In small towns,
20:03
Speaker 2: justice relies entirely on the integrity of the dispatcher who
20:06
Speaker 2: answers your call and the first responder who steps onto
20:09
Speaker 2: your porch.
20:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
20:10
Speaker 2: If the local power dynamics dictate that the people in
20:13
Speaker 2: charge look the other way, the machine doesn't just stall.
20:16
Speaker 2: It actively works against you.
20:18
Speaker 1: It becomes a weapon of suppression. And that brings me
20:21
Speaker 1: to a final, deeply unsettling thought for you to consider
20:24
Speaker 1: as we wrap up What's up. The only reason we
20:27
Speaker 1: are talking about Amber Spradland today is because of the sheer,
20:30
Speaker 1: uncontrollable violence of the act. The knife blade literally broke
20:35
Speaker 1: off in her neck. The forensic evidence was undeniable. But
20:38
Speaker 1: what if the horrific tragedy in that house hadn't been
20:41
Speaker 1: so overtly visceral?
20:42
Speaker 2: Right?
20:42
Speaker 1: What if the tech savvy removal of the cameras had
20:45
Speaker 1: been paired with a weapon that didn't snap, If the
20:48
Speaker 1: cover up had been just ten percent cleaner, would Amber
20:50
Speaker 1: have simply been written off as another tragic aspiration in
20:54
Speaker 1: Floyd County.
20:55
Speaker 2: It's a terrifying thought.
20:56
Speaker 1: It forces us to ask across thousands of ICEOL related
21:00
Speaker 1: municipalities globally. How many secret ledgers of covered up crimes
21:04
Speaker 1: are currently hiding in plain sight, protected by wealth, just
21:08
Speaker 1: waiting for the perpetrator to leave behind one tiny, broken
21:12
Speaker 1: piece of evidence.
21:13
Speaker 2: It is a haunting reality to acknowledge the difference between
21:16
Speaker 2: a tragic accident and a covered up murder often isn't
21:19
Speaker 2: the evidence itself, it's the social influence of the person
21:22
Speaker 2: trying to hide it.
21:23
Speaker 1: We will definitely keep tracking the civil suit and the
21:25
Speaker 1: trial as they unfold. Keep your eyes open, look past
21:28
Speaker 1: the official narratives, and never stop demanding the truth. This
21:31
Speaker 1: has been the deep dive