On a summer night in Zoe, Kentucky, a verbal altercation between two men ended in tragedy. Jarron Nicholas Slayback, a 31-year-old male from Cincinnati, Ohio, was fatally shot on June 17, 2020. The incident occurred on Lakeside Drive in the rural community of Wolfe County, where Slayback was struck by a firearm discharge and pronounced deceased at the scene by the Wolfe County Coroner.
The man accused of the shooting was identified as Troy Dunkelberger, also 31 years of age and from West
Chester, Ohio. According to Kentucky State Police, the two men were engaged in an argument when Dunkelberger retrieved a firearm and shot Slayback. Following the incident, Dunkelberger was arrested and lodged in the Powell County Detention Center, facing a charge of Murder in the First Degree.
The legal proceedings that followed have been fraught with developments. In May 2023, a Wolfe County Circuit Court jury convicted Troy Dunkelberger of first-degree manslaughter, and he was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, in a significant turn of events, the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned this conviction in March 2025. The state's highest court ruled that the trial court had erred in allowing evidence that labeled Dunkelberger as the initial aggressor, stating that his actions of yelling Slayback's name and displaying a holstered firearm did not meet the legal standard for such a classification. The Supreme Court has instructed that if a retrial is conducted with the same evidence, an initial aggressor instruction should not be given. This decision has left the family of Jarron Slayback devastated as they potentially face a new trial.
