Judge throws out plea deal in Whitley homicide case

Circuit Judge Paul Winchester has thrown out a conditional guilty plea in a local homicide case and is ordering that the case be tried because the prosecutor and defense attorneys can’t agree on whether the defendant should remain free on bond pending appeal.

Winchester issued the order on Halloween and has scheduled a Nov. 20 hearing date when he will likely schedule a new trial date in the case.

The case in question involves Keith Edward Mason of Oak Ridge, who is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the Jan. 20, 2012 shooting death of his former stepfather, Robert "Bobby" Vanover.

On July 16, Mason entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge of second-degree manslaughter.

In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to recommend a seven-year prison sentence for Mason. An unusual condition of the plea deal was that prosecutors agreed to allow Mason to appeal the case based on a self-defense law passed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 2006.

If the appeals court sided with Mason, then case could be dismissed.

"The court accepted the plea agreement with the understanding that the parties were in agreement as to all issues pertaining to the above-styled case," Winchester wrote in the ruling.

"The parties subsequently appeared in open court on Aug. 18 for the purpose of final sentencing. It became readily apparently to the court the parties were not in agreement as to the issue of the defendant remaining on bond pending the appeal. The court sentenced the defendant while reserving the bond issue and setting a hearing in an attempt to clarify the dispute."

During an Oct. 22 hearing, neither side could agree on whether there was an agreement concerning an appeal bond when the plea agreement was worked out.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble, who is the prosecutor in the case, argued that Mason should be sent to prison while his appeal is pending.

Defense attorney Ronald Bowling contended that Mason should be allowed to remain free on bond.

Trimble said Monday morning that he hadn’t read the judge’s ruling yet.

Bowling also declined to comment on the ruling Monday morning.

Mason has never disputed shooting Vanover, 60, to death on Jan. 20, 2012, on a remote roadway in far western Whitley County only about 300 yards from the Tennessee state line, and has always claimed that he shot Vanover in self-defense.

The shooting happened about noon on Ayers Road on or near property that was owned by Mason’s mother. Vanover’s son, Kevin Vanover, was staying on his mother’s property and Bobby Vanover was there visiting him.

Mason told Bobby Vanover that he wasn’t supposed to be on the property and that his mother had EPO’s and other various paperwork against him.

When the confrontation started Bobby Vanover reportedly told Keith Mason that even though Mason was half his age, he would whip him all over the road and then he struck Mason with a gazing blow to his lip, police testified.

After being struck, Keith Mason fired multiple shots striking Vanover in the chin, the upper chest area near the neck and in the side.

Vanover wasn’t armed with a gun, but police did find his mag flashlight at the crime scene near his body.

The plea agreement notes that the divorce between Vanover and Mason’s mother more than 20 years ago was acrimonious and that the victim hadn’t seen his biological son in nearly 20 years. The agreement also notes that Mason confronted the victim on a public road adjacent to a farm that Mason’s family owned and that Mason shot and killed Vanover.

After the shooting, Mason spent 43 days in the Whitley County Detention Center being held in lieu of a $1 million cash bond before he was released after the grand jury issued no indictment against him on March 12, 2012.

The case was presented to the grand jury a second time on July 2, 2012, and the grand jury returned a second-degree manslaughter indictment against Mason.

The grand jury heard from three witnesses when the case was presented the second time including Whitley County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy K.Y. Fuson, who investigated the case, and from two of Vanover’s relatives, his mother, Della Vanover Terry, and his aunt, Shirley Ball Hudson.