On May 26, 2009, a tragic sequence of events unfolded in a quiet residential area of Bardstown, Kentucky, culminating in the death of a one-year-old White / Caucasian male named Cole Lance Tobey Colbert. Nelson County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a home on Tree Top Drive around 5:00 p.m. after receiving a call regarding a shooting. Upon entering the residence, officers discovered the lifeless bodies of the toddler and his father, Timothy Lance Frazier.
Investigators determined that both had sustained fatal gunshot wounds in what was ruled a murder-suicide. There were no signs of forced entry into the home, and authorities concluded that the father had ended the child’s life before turning the weapon on himself.
The underlying tension leading to this violent act appeared to stem from a prolonged and contentious custody dispute between Frazier and the child’s mother, Candice Nicole Dempsey. Relatives indicated that the couple had been at odds over the care of their son for several months prior to the incident. On the day of the deaths, the situation escalated tragically when the child was in the care of his father. Frazier, a 28-year-old resident of the home, left no survivors at the scene, effectively closing the possibility of criminal prosecution for the murder itself. Because the perpetrator took his own life immediately following the crime, there were no arrests, trials, or convictions directly related to the shooting.
In the aftermath of the investigation, the focus of legal action shifted toward the circumstances that placed the child in his father's custody that day. Candice Nicole Dempsey filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Lawrenceburg and specific police officers, alleging that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. The complaint asserted that law enforcement officers had improperly seized the child from her care and transferred him to Frazier shortly before the murder-suicide occurred. While the criminal case concluded with the death of the suspect, the civil litigation sought to hold authorities accountable for their role in the events leading up to the loss of the twenty-one-month-old boy.
