In the early morning hours of October 30, 2024, the quiet of an Elizabethtown, Kentucky neighborhood was shattered by the sirens of emergency responders rushing to a house fire on Henon Lane. Firefighters arrived to a chaotic scene, and upon entering the burning residence, they made a grim discovery. Inside lay the bodies of two men, later identified as 43-year-old Anthony Garrett of Elizabethtown and 41-year-old Blake France of Greenville.
It was soon determined that the men had not perished in the fire, but had been shot to death before the blaze was intentionally set.
The investigation into the double homicide and arson quickly led police to a suspect. Witnesses reported seeing a gold pickup truck speeding away from the scene around the time the fire started. Investigators tracked the vehicle to a local motel where they found and began questioning 45-year-old Dustin Caudill. Within hours, Caudill confessed to shooting both Garrett and France, and then setting the house on fire in an attempt to cover up the murders. He also admitted to stealing the victims' wallets and discarding them in a gas station trash can. Police recovered some of the victims' belongings from Caudill's motel room and surveillance footage showed him disposing of a handgun.
As the investigation progressed, a chilling history of violence surrounding Dustin Caudill came to light. At the age of 15, in 1994, he shot and killed his mother and 10-year-old brother. He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for those murders and had been released on parole in 2020. He had a subsequent parole violation in 2023 and had only been fully discharged from custody in July 2024, just a few months before the deaths of Garrett and France. Caudill was arrested and charged with two counts of murder, arson, robbery, tampering with physical evidence, wanton endangerment, and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon. He is being held at the Hardin County Detention Center on a $1 million bond.
