Kristin Nicole Longaker, a 27-year-old White/Caucasian female from the Highview area of Louisville, became one of two victims in a brutal shooting on a rural stretch of Bullitt County road outside Shepherdsville. The attack occurred on Memorial Day, May 30, 2022, but Longaker survived the initial shooting and was rushed to the University of Louisville Hospital. She died there the following day, May 31, from a gunshot wound. Katelyn Rayman, the other victim, died at the scene.
Longaker’s obituary likewise records her death as May 31, rather than May 30.
The victims were discovered at about 8:20 that Monday morning in the 1700 block of Pitts Point Road, roughly four to five miles west of Shepherdsville near the Kings Forest area. People living along Pitts Point Road found them near the roadside, where they had been left in the open rather than concealed. Longaker was still alive but critically wounded when emergency crews reached her. The secluded location quickly became the center of a homicide investigation as Bullitt County authorities tried to determine how the victims had ended up there and what had happened during the preceding night.
Investigators soon developed a far more disturbing account of the hours leading to the shooting. Authorities said Longaker and Rayman were acquainted with Bradley Joseph Ross and Savannah Rae McClanahan, and that the four had traveled together from Louisville into Bullitt County during the early morning hours. According to the arrest citation, Ross and McClanahan forced the victims out of the vehicle after reaching the remote area, shot them in the head, and left them along Pitts Point Road. Investigators also alleged that a cell phone and Longaker’s silver 2002 Hyundai Elantra were taken following the shootings. The missing Hyundai, bearing Kentucky license plate 579-AMN, immediately became an important part of the investigation, and police warned that anyone found occupying it should be considered armed and dangerous.
The Sheriff’s Office continued trying to reconstruct what occurred during the night of May 29 and the early hours of May 30, including where the four had been before arriving in western Bullitt County and where the suspects went afterward. Authorities confirmed that the victims and suspects knew one another, but a clear motive was not publicly released in the early investigation. The circumstances described by investigators suggested robbery was part of the crime, given the allegation that property and Longaker’s vehicle were taken, but officials did not publicly identify a definitive explanation for why the encounter escalated into the shootings.
The investigation led to Ross and McClanahan on June 8, 2022. Authorities received information that the pair were in the area of Conestoga Parkway, and Bullitt County deputies, assisted by Shepherdsville and Louisville Metro law enforcement, moved in during the afternoon. Despite concerns that the suspects could be armed, they were taken into custody without incident at approximately 3:30 p.m. Both were jailed in Bullitt County and initially faced two homicide counts, first-degree robbery-related allegations and tampering with physical evidence. At an early court appearance, a judge set a $2 million cash bond for each defendant because of the seriousness of the case.
McClanahan’s case eventually ended through an Alford plea rather than a jury trial. She accepted a conviction for complicity to first-degree robbery and agreed to a 15-year prison sentence while maintaining her claim of innocence, which is permitted under an Alford plea. Her sentencing was briefly thrown into uncertainty in August 2023 when prosecutors asked the judge to postpone the proceeding so investigators could recover and examine potential evidence from cell phones. The Commonwealth said it wanted to verify its understanding of the case before final sentencing; her defense attorney argued that nothing recovered from the devices was likely to change the negotiated agreement. Kentucky Department of Corrections records list the conviction date as September 29, 2023, and the sentence as 15 years. Those records currently list McClanahan as an active inmate at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, with a parole eligibility date in 2035.
Ross’s prosecution remained unresolved considerably longer. He ultimately reached a plea agreement in December 2024 instead of proceeding through a completed jury trial. Ross pleaded guilty to two counts of complicity to murder, while other charges he had been facing in the case were dismissed as part of the agreement. In January 2025, he was sentenced to a total of 60 years in prison for his role in the killings. Current Kentucky Department of Corrections information lists Ross as an active inmate at Kentucky State Penitentiary and records the Bullitt County complicity-to-murder conviction in connection with the May 30, 2022 crime. His Department of Corrections record lists a parole eligibility date of June 8, 2042.
Outside the criminal case, Longaker’s obituary described a life that had little resemblance to the violence of her final hours. Born August 18, 1994, in Louisville, she attended Moore High School, where she played basketball and graduated in 2013. Her family remembered her enjoyment of fishing and hunting with her father, her humor, and a caring nature that led her to help other people. That continued after her death through organ donation; her obituary states that her donated organs helped save five lives. The homicide investigation that began along Pitts Point Road therefore ultimately ended with two identified defendants receiving lengthy prison sentences, while Longaker’s family was left with a loss that extended far beyond the criminal proceedings themselves.
