Judge Paul Winchester has sentenced an Indiana man to 20 years in prison for his role in a 2017 triple homicide that occurred in far eastern Whitley County.
In early November 2025, Anthony Hester, 40, pleaded guilty to three counts of complicity to commit murder, first-degree burglary and tampering with physical evidence in exchange for prosecutors recommending a 20-year prison sentence.
His co-defendant Jeremy Hatfield, 41, of Indiana, also pled to the same charges in early November and was already sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A third defendant in the case, Darnell Chivers, 45, of Indiana, was found incompetent to stand trial on Oct. 28, 2025, on charges of three counts of murder in the strangulation deaths of Robert Mack “Little Man” Kennedy III, who had just turned 16 years old; his mother, Emogene Ormae Bittner, 36; and her husband and Kennedy’s stepfather, Christopher Michael Bittner, 24, who were all found dead on Sept. 13, 2017, at a 1602 Deep Branch Road residence.
The killings are believed to have taken place on Sept 11 or 12, 2017, and drug involvement is suspected as at least a partial motive in the case, Williamsburg police said previously.
Chivers was also charged with first-degree burglary and tampering with physical evidence in the case.
A person is incompetent to stand trial if, because of a mental condition, they lack the capacity to appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against them or cannot participate rationally in their own defense. The court is tasked with ascertaining whether the defendant is incompetent to stand trial by a preponderance of the evidence, Winchester wrote in the order.
After Winchester’s order, prosecutors filed to have Chivers involuntarily committed to a secure mental institution for the remainder of his life under a relatively new state law passed in 2021. It allows for a defendant charged with a capital offense to be prosecuted civilly under the KRS 202C law.
State law requires that an evidentiary hearing must first be held to determine if there is sufficient evidence to support a finding that the respondent is guilty of the charged crime. The commonwealth has the burden of proving the sufficiency of the evidence by a preponderance of the evidence.
Whitley Circuit Court records indicate that a two-day “bench trial” was slated to start in Chivers’ case on Nov. 5, 2025, and was expected to conclude the following day.
The hearing was held before Winchester and not before a jury. Under state law, the hearing wasn’t open to the public or the media because it contained confidential information.
Background
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Sept. 13, 2017, Kathy Faulkner, Emogene’s mother, called 911 reporting that she had found her daughter dead at the residence.
Faulkner owned the residence, but her daughter, grandson and son-in-law had been staying there while she was away from home.
Kathy Faulkner found Emogene with a bag over her head inside the house. The other two victims were found outside the house.
“It looks like they put a bag over her head. Oh, my God!” Kathy Faulkner told a dispatcher during a 911 call. “I have been having some problems out of some guys in Indiana, but I think that they put them in jail or something. I don’t know.”
The case went unsolved for more than a year. At the request of the victim’s family Williamsburg police started investigating the case in July 2018 and made three arrests in late January 2019 in connection to the case.
During a Jan. 30, 2018, interview with police Chivers denied having any involvement with the murder of Faulkner’s family but admitted that he wanted to rob Faulkner’s supplier in Ohio, who reportedly had “bricks” of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, according to an affidavit filed in connection to the case.
