Lakeisha Hill, a 32-year-old Black/African American woman from Lexington, Kentucky, was caught in a deadly burst of gunfire on the night of April 20, 2023, near 5th and Chestnut streets. Around 9:49 p.m., Lexington police officers who were already in the area heard gunshots coming from the 400 block of Chestnut Street. When they reached the scene, they found two people suffering from gunshot wounds: Hill and 43-year-old Timonte Harris.
Harris was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hill was still alive when officers found her, but her injuries were described as life-threatening, and she was rushed to a local hospital. Court-related reporting later described her wounds as multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Although the shooting happened on April 20, police and coroner reporting said Hill was pronounced dead days later, around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 22, 2023. Her death turned the Chestnut Street shooting into a double-fatality case.
The case quickly focused on 37-year-old Corry Jackson, who was found about a block away after witnesses gave police a suspect description. He was arrested and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center. Early reports said he was charged with murder, assault, and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon. As the investigation and court process developed, however, the case became more complicated than a straightforward double-murder arrest.
Police and prosecutors later presented the shooting as a chain of events rather than one person killing both victims. Their theory was that Timonte Harris shot Hill, and that Corry Jackson then shot Harris. Jackson was charged in connection with Harris's death, but reports specifically noted that he was not charged with killing Hill. In May 2023, a judge reduced Jackson's murder charge to manslaughter at a preliminary stage, finding the evidence at that hearing supported the lesser charge. A grand jury later indicted Jackson on a murder charge tied to Harris's death, along with a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun.
Jackson and his family maintained that he was innocent. His defense argued that the evidence did not prove he fired the fatal shots. The case moved toward trial, and by December 2024, it took a dramatic turn in court. During Jackson's murder trial, a defense witness, Courtney Wrenn, took the stand and admitted that he had fired the shots that killed Harris. Trial reporting also said a Kentucky State Police DNA analyst testified that DNA found on the trigger and lever of the rifle matched Wrenn.
After that testimony, the jury deliberated for roughly one to two hours and found Corry Jackson not guilty in Harris's killing. The gun possession charge against Jackson was also dismissed, and reports said he was expected to be released from jail after the verdict. The acquittal meant Jackson was no longer legally responsible for Harris's death, while Hill's death remained tied in public reporting to the prosecution theory that Harris shot her before Harris himself was killed.
No online source located reported that anyone was arrested, tried, or convicted specifically for Hill's killing. The available reporting indicates that Harris, who died at the scene, was considered by police to have shot Hill, while Jackson was prosecuted only for Harris's death and later acquitted after Wrenn confessed to killing Harris. Hill's death began as the suffering of a wounded woman found alive on Chestnut Street, but it ultimately became part of a tangled courtroom story involving two deaths, shifting charges, a disputed arrest, and a trial that ended with the accused man walking free.
