Robert Carl Foley

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Robert Carl Foley
Born (1956-09-13) September 13, 1956
Harlan, Kentucky, U.S.
Other nameRobert Karl Lee Foley
Criminal status
Incarcerated on death row
Convictions1977
Murder
1993
First degree murder (2 counts)
1994
First degree murder (4 counts)
Criminal penalty
1977
35 years' imprisonment
1993
Death
1994
Death
Details
Victims7+
Span of crimes
1976–1991
StateKentucky

Robert Carl Foley (born September 13, 1956)[1] is an American serial killer and death row prisoner convicted of seven murders between 1976 and 1991 in Kentucky. Foley first killed Zetler Fields in a 1976 shooting case where he also wounded two men. Foley was found guilty of Fields's murder and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, but was paroled after serving four years.

Afterwards, Foley committed a quadruple murder in 1989, killing Kimberly Bowersock, Lillian Contino, Jerry McMillen, and Calvin Reynolds inside a cabin in Laurel County. Two years later, Foley also killed a pair of brothers, Rodney and Lynn Vaughn, during a party at his Laurel County house in 1991, a case that ultimately led to his arrest. Foley remains a suspect behind several more murders, including the 1988 unsolved killing of a police officer.

Foley was put on trial for the murders of the Vaughn brothers and the 1989 quadruple murder case, and in both cases, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Foley is currently on Kentucky's death row awaiting execution.

Personal life

Robert Carl Foley was born in Harlan, Kentucky, on September 13, 1956. Foley, who had three brothers, had a rough childhood and grew up in poverty. His father reportedly worked in a landfill and also drove the coal truck to make a living and support the family.[2] When Foley was 12 years old, his grandmother and step-grandfather were charged and found guilty of the murder of a state trooper, who arrested one of their sons (Foley's uncle) in a previous case. At one point in his life, Foley allegedly became a FBI informant.[3]

First murder and early crimes

On April 17, 1976, in Harlan, Kentucky, Robert Foley committed his first murder. On that day, Foley fatally shot 22-year-old Zetler Fields Jr., and during the same shooting, Foley also shot another two men, 17-year-old Jimmy Joe Ball and 20-year-old Wendell Hale.[4] Foley was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.[5]

Foley was set to stand trial on March 17, 1977.[6] The trial went forward as scheduled, and the testimony phase concluded on that same day.[7]

On March 19, 1977, Foley was found guilty of Fields's murder and two counts of first-degree assault for the shootings of Ball and Hale. He was sentenced to a total of 35 years in prison.[8] Foley was incarcerated at the Kentucky State Reformatory thereafter, where he served four years before he was paroled in 1981.[9]

After his release, Foley continued to commit crimes. In 1984, he was convicted and sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in Ohio for charges of assault and possession of a firearm by a felon offender, and he was released in December 1985. He was similarly charged with assault in two separate incidents in 1988 and 1989 respectively. These charges were still pending in court as of 1991, the same year when he was arrested as a suspect for multiple murders.[9]

Subsequent murders

Between 1988 and 1991, Robert Foley committed multiple murders in different locations across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

1989 Laurel County quadruple murder

On October 8, 1989, Foley committed a quadruple murder inside a cabin in Laurel County.

On that day, Foley and an acquaintance arrived at the cabin, where it was occupied by eight people. When the group were seated together inside the room, Foley attacked Kimberly "Kim" Bowersock and grabbed her by the hair, and when one of the members, Calvin Reynolds, tried to intervene, Foley brandished his gun and open fire multiple times, first shooting and killing Bowersock, before killing Reynolds and two more victims: Lillian Contino and Jerry McMillen. After the deaths of the four victims, Foley disposed of the bodies in a septic tank with the abetment of David Gross, the cabin owner, and Foley's acquaintance, and the septic tank was thereafter covered with lime and cement.[10]

According to the Commonwealth, Foley had murdered Bowersock because he believed that she accused him of growing and selling marijuana, which caused him to get into trouble with his parole officer, and the other three deceased victims were killed due to them witnessing the shooting of Bowersock, and Foley wanted to silence them. The bodies were not found until two years later, when they were dug out by the authorities during a search conducted after Foley's arrest for an unrelated 1991 double murder.[10]

1991 Vaughn brothers murders

On August 17, 1991, Foley killed a pair of brothers, Harry Lynn Vaughn (also known as Lynn Vaughn) and Rodney Vaughn at his house in Laurel County.

On that day, Foley and the two brothers attended a party where they were accompanied by another eight attendees and five children. Prior to the session, Foley continued to keep his .38 Colt snub-nose revolver concealed in the small of his back under his belt, even after the rest of the attendees kept their respective firearms locked away in the kitchen cabinet. After consuming a large amount of alcohol, Foley turned aggressive and got into a fistfight with one of the Vaughn brothers, Rodney, and it was quickly broken up. Although Foley asked Lynn to bring Rodney home, they later shook hands before the party resumed. However, a second fight happened between Rodney and Foley again.[11][12]

During this second fight, Foley drew his gun and shot Rodney six times, and Rodney sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the left arm and trunk, which led to multiple hemorrhage and in turn caused Rodney's death. Shortly after, Foley also shot Lynn, and due to multiple gunshot wounds to the head and extremities, Lynn also died at the scene. In his version of events, Foley claimed he killed Rodney in self-defence because the latter aimed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him, while he claimed Lynn was not killed by him, but rather by one of the guests. After the shootings, Foley ordered the witnesses to clean up the crime scene and dispose of the Vaughns' bodies in Sinking Creek in Laurel County.[10][13]

Suspected murders

Apart from the confirmed murders linked to him, Foley was named a suspect in the 1988 murder of a police officer. In this case, Kentucky State Trooper John Edrington was shot to death on December 20, 1988, and the murder weapon used was the victim's own .357 Magnum revolver, and it was speculated that prior to his death, Edrington had stopped a speeding motorist, and a medical examiner ruled out the possibility of suicide in July 1989. Foley was questioned for the case after his arrest in 1991, but he was not formally charged for the crime.[3][14]

Foley was also the prime suspect behind the murder of another man in 1990, and the body of the victim, David Gross, was found buried in Foley's house.[3] Gross, then 43 years old, was shot to death in October 1990 during a dispute in which he allegedly stabbed Foley in his home. He was also a witness of the 1989 quadruple murder, and according to the police, they found not only his body, but also a gun believed to have been used to kill the four victims in the 1989 case.[15][16]

Death penalty trials

Charges

On August 20, 1991, three days after the murder of the Vaughn brothers, Robert Foley was charged with the double murder, and he pleaded not guilty to the charges.[17]

On October 27, 1991, Foley was additionally charged with four counts of murder for the 1989 case, after the police found the victims' bodies buried in the septic tank where Foley disposed of their bodies back in 1989.[18][19]

First trial

On August 24, 1991, Foley's charges for the Vaughn brothers case were forwarded before a Laurel County grand jury, and he was later indicted for the double murder.[20]

On August 23, 1993, the jury selection phase officially commenced for Foley's trial in the Vaughn brothers case.[21] A 12-member jury was assembled after less than a week.[22]

On September 1, 1993, the Laurel County jury found Foley guilty of the murders of the Vaughn brothers.[23][24]

On September 3, 1993, the jury unanimously recommended Foley to receive two death sentences for murdering the Vaughn brothers.[25][26]

On September 22, 1993, Foley was formally sentenced to death via the electric chair for the double murder.[27][28]

Second trial

On November 8, 1991, Foley's quadruple murder charges were brought forward for review by a separate grand jury.[29] On December 20, 1991, a Laurel County grand jury indicted Foley for the first-degree murders of all four victims from the 1989 mass murder case.[30] On September 28, 1993, a judge granted Foley's request to move his trial venue from Laurel County to another county.[31]

On April 5, 1994, Foley officially stood trial for first-degree murder a second time, this time in relation to the 1989 quadruple killings, and jury selection was carried out on the same day.[32]

On April 8, 1994, Foley was found guilty of all four counts of first-degree murder by the jury.[33][34]

On April 11, 1994, the jury unanimously voted to impose the death penalty for the quadruple murder.[35][36]

On April 27, 1994, Foley was handed an additional four death sentences by the trial court for the 1989 case.[37][38]

Appeals

On May 16, 1996, Robert Foley filed his first appeal against the two death sentences for the 1991 murder of the Vaughn brothers, requesting the Kentucky Supreme Court to overturn both sentences in favour of a new trial.[39][40]

On November 21, 1996, the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected Foley's appeal against his two death sentences for the Vaughn brothers case.[11]

On April 24, 1997, the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld Foley's four death sentences for the 1989 case and rejected his appeal. The court rejected Foley's argument that it was manifestly excessive for him to be given four death sentences for the 1989 mass murder, on account that there were precedent cases where certain convicts received more than one death sentence for multiple murders.[41][10]

On March 21, 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Foley's appeal for the 1989 murder case.[42]

On March 23, 2000, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that Foley received adequate legal counsel in his trial for the 1991 Vaughn case.[43][44]

On November 22, 2000, Foley's appeal in the 1989 case was again rejected by the Kentucky Supreme Court.[45]

On December 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Foley's appeal for the 1991 Vaughn case.[46]

On March 22, 2010, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied Foley's appeal for the 1991 homicides.[47]

On March 20, 2014, Foley's appeal was rejected by the Kentucky Supreme Court.[48]

On June 11, 2015, the Kentucky Supreme Court dismissed the appeal from both Foley and another convicted murderer Ralph Baze against the Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, Kentucky Department of Corrections and Kentucky Parole Board regarding the clemency petitions and policies.[49]

On August 26, 2016, Foley's appeal was turned down by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.[50]

On February 16, 2017, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied Foley's post-conviction petition.[51]

Other developments

In May 1992, before he stood trial for the 1989 and 1991 murders, Robert Foley was charged with assaulting a fellow prisoner while detained at the Madison County Detention Center. The victim was Owen Ray Gadd, who was charged with the sodomy and rape of a seven-year-old girl.[52]

In January 1993, the bereaved family of the Vaughn brothers filed a federal lawsuit suing the FBI for negligient supervision of Foley, which resulted in the murders of the Vaughn brothers.[53] In July 1996, a federal district court rejected the lawsuit and found that the FBI played no role in the double murder, and there was no causal connection between the case and the government or organization.[12]

Sometime while on death row, Foley faced the possibility of a seventh murder charge, because in a previous 1988 assault case, the victim, Robert Tucker, was severely assaulted and left incapacitated by Foley on September 8, 1988, and Tucker died on an unknown date years after the incident from his injuries. In April 1995, the prosecution decided to dismiss the case and not proceed with trying Foley for Tucker's death on account of his six death sentences for the 1989 and 1991 homicides.[54]

In April 2015, Foley lost a lawsuit requesting the state to pay for a hip replacement surgery on his behalf. In his filing, Foley claimed that he suffered from arthritis pain on his hip since 2008 and that the $50,000 operation was necessary, but corrections department could not allow him to receive the surgery since it was not a medical necessity and they could not find a hospital to operate on Foley (primarily due to security concerns raised by the hospital representatives pertaining to Foley's death row status). The district court sided with the state and rejected the lawsuit. Foley also claimed that the prison refused to let him use a wheelchair but the court found that Foley had not been withheld from treatment since he was offered a walker and given pain medication and a steroid injection.[55]

In December 2018, during an interview, the daughter of Rodney Vaughn (one of Foley's victims) expressed that she still waited for Foley to be executed and hoped for the Commonwealth of Kentucky to resume executions, emphasizing on the pain and sadness of losing her father and uncle Lynn Vaughn to the murders back in 1991.[56] In August 2019, Rodney's daughter reaffirmed her commitment and wish to see Foley get executed.[57]

A 2024 report showed that Foley was one of 25 inmates listed on Kentucky's death row.[58]

As of 2026, Foley remains incarcerated at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.[1]

See also

References

  1. "Offender Information – FOLEY, ROBERT KARL LEE". Kentucky Online Offender Lookup. Retrieved June 18, 2026.
  2. "Reported Fbi Informant Linked To String Of Slayings, Assaults". Daily News. November 25, 1991.
  3. "Thrice-convicted, man on trial for 4 more slayings". Ludington Daily News. April 8, 1994.
  4. "Deputy, Marlon Man Are Killed In Two Shootings". Harlan Daily Enterprise. April 19, 1976.
  5. "Ten Persons Killed In Weekend Ky. Accidents". Williamson Daily News. April 19, 1976.
  6. "Court To Open March 7". Harlan Daily Enterprise. February 28, 1977.
  7. "Testimony Concluded In Foley Murder Trial; Jury To Get Case". Harlan Daily Enterprise. March 18, 1977.
  8. "Foley Found Guilty Of Murder, Other Charges". Harlan Daily Enterprise. March 20, 1977.
  9. "String Of Violent Crimes Began In Harlan In 1976". Harlan Daily Enterprise. November 25, 1991.
  10. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [1997], Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  11. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [1996], Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  12. Foley v. United States [1996], U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky (United States).
  13. "Jury says 'death' for Foley". Daily News. September 3, 1993.
  14. "Police say Foley has no information in trooper slaying". Harlan Daily Enterprise. April 27, 1994.
  15. "Foley pleads innocent to murders". Harlan Daily Enterprise. October 29, 1991.
  16. "Foley quizzed about trooper". Harlan Daily Enterprise. April 30, 1994.
  17. "Foley pleads not guilty to murders". Harlan Daily Enterprise. August 22, 1991.
  18. "Foley charged with shooting deaths of four found buried". Harlan Daily Enterprise. October 28, 1991.
  19. "Laurel man charged". Daily News. October 28, 1991.
  20. "Foley ordered held without bond on murder charges". Harlan Daily Enterprise. August 24, 1991.
  21. "Selection of jury begins in Foley murder trial". Harlan Daily Enterprise. August 24, 1993.
  22. "Double murder trial of alleged FBI informant begins". Harlan Daily Enterprise. August 28, 1993.
  23. "Foley Convicted Of Double Murder Charge". Harlan Daily Enterprise. September 2, 1993.
  24. "Supposed Informant Convicted In Double Murder". Kentucky New Era. September 2, 1993.
  25. "Death sentence recommended in case". The Madison Courier. September 3, 1993.
  26. "Jury delivers death sentence for killer". Kentucky New Era. September 4, 1993.
  27. "Foley Sentenced To Die In Electric Chair". Harlan Daily Enterprise. September 23, 1993.
  28. "Supposed Informant Sentenced By Judge To Die In Electric Chair". Daily News. September 22, 1993.
  29. "Murder suspect's case bound over to grand jury". Harlan Daily Enterprise. November 9, 1991.
  30. "Laurel grand jury indicts Robert Foley in four deaths". Harlan Daily Enterprise. December 21, 1991.
  31. "Judge agrees to move quadruple murder trial". Harlan Daily Enterprise. September 28, 1993.
  32. "Foley murder trial begins". Daily News. April 5, 1994.
  33. "Murder conviction". The Vindicator. April 9, 1994.
  34. "Foley convicted of four murders". The Madison Courier. April 9, 1994.
  35. "Jury recommends Foley die for quadruple murder". The Bryan Times. April 12, 1994.
  36. "Jury: Foley should die for quadruple murder". Times Daily. April 12, 1994.
  37. "Foley gets another death sentence". Harlan Daily Enterprise. April 27, 1994.
  38. "Foley gets another death sentence". Daily News. April 27, 1994.
  39. "Ex-FBI Informant Appeals 2 Of His 6 Death Sentences". Kentucky New Era. May 14, 1996.
  40. "Foley appeals two death sentences". Daily News. May 16, 1996.
  41. "Prolific killer up to 6 death sentences". Kentucky New Era. April 24, 1997.
  42. "Foley case review denied". Kentucky New Era. March 21, 1998.
  43. "Court rules Foley received adequate counsel". Harlan Daily Enterprise. March 24, 2000.
  44. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [2000], March 23, 2000, Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  45. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [2000], November 22, 2000, Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  46. "Foley loses appeal". Middlesboro Daily News. December 12, 2000.
  47. "Supreme court denies killer's appeal". The Sentinel Echo. April 24, 1997.
  48. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [2014], Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  49. Foley v. Beshear [2015], Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  50. Foley v. Warden [2016], 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (United States).
  51. Foley v. Commonwealth of Kentucky [2017], Kentucky Supreme Court (United States).
  52. "Robert Foley faces new assault charge". Harlan Daily Enterprise. May 23, 1992.
  53. "Family Of Slain Brothers Files Lawsuit Alleging FBI Negligence". Harlan Daily Enterprise. January 13, 1993.
  54. "Inmate won't face murder charges". Daily News. April 22, 1995.
  55. "Death-Row Inmate Robert Foley Loses Bid for Hip Replacement". NBC News. April 16, 2015.
  56. "Murder victims' family pushes for death penalty in Kentucky". WHAS11. December 5, 2018.
  57. "Woman still seeking justice for father, uncle's murders nearly three decades later". WKYT. August 17, 2019.
  58. "A serial killer, kidnappers, burglars: These 25 people are on death row in Kentucky". Louisville Courier Journal. July 26, 2024.