‘Kimber’s Law’ was a good first bill by Rep. Nick Wilson

Kudos to 82nd Rep. Nick Wilson, who recently got his first bill passed through the Kentucky General Assembly and it was a significant one.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

House Bill 249, also known as Kimber’s Law, passed the House by a vote of 85-6 and the Senate by a vote of 32-4. Governor Beshear signed it into law last Friday.

HB 249 will amend state law to include the intentional killing of a child under 12 years old as an aggravating circumstance for which the death penalty may be authorized by a prosecutor.

The bill stemmed from a case Wilson worked on in McCreary County as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney. That case involved the murder of two-year-old Kimber Collins, the namesake of the bill, who was beaten over the course of three hours by her mother’s boyfriend before being taken to the hospital. Collins was kept alive by a ventilator for three days before her mother was forced to make the decision to cease life support.

In that case, the defendant, Michael Cody Huff, received a 35-year sentence, which Wilson has described as “not enough.”

Both Wilson and his old boss, Whitley and McCreary Commonwealth’s Attorney Ronnie Bowling, testified in support of the bill.

This is a very good bill. The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst cases where death is the only thing that would even come close to justice for the crime that was committed.

There are few things, if any, lower that intentionally and deliberately murdering a young child.

Good job Nick.

While there isn’t much worse you can do besides killing a child, there are certainly several crimes that the word repugnant doesn’t even come close to describing.

One of those is something we had last week in the aftermath of the tragic death of eight-year-old Eli Hill, who died during a freak accident while playing basketball.

A fake GoFundMe account was set up from someone trying to take advantage of tragedy.

To call the person or people behind this scam scum would be a massive understatement, and an insult to most of the other scum we have out there, who wouldn’t even stoop to this level.

I think I speak for many people when I say I hope that they get what’s coming to them.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Eli’s family and friends.

By all accounts, he was a great kid who would have likely gone on to do great things as an adult.

I also have to salute the Corbin community as a whole, which seems to have really come out to support Eli’s family.

A couple hundred people turned last Wednesday evening for a ceremony at Rotary Park remembering Eli, who was a primary school student that loved sports and was a member of the Corbin Bombers baseball team.

We got a message from Cameron Hicks Saturday, who is encouraging everyone in the Corbin community to shine a blue light bulb outside their home in honor of Eli Hill.

“We’ve heard it mentioned so many times how Eli loved Blue Raspberry anything, especially suckers. Let’s shine a blue light to remind this family that we will not forget this precious boy’s impact. Maybe this will be physical proof of just how many people are thinking of them, praying for them, loving them, and remembering Eli. If you get a blue light, please take a picture and post it with the hashtag #BlueForEli. Let’s show this family that he will never be forgotten,” the message reads.

Personally, I wish that I had words and wisdom to make sense out of a tragedy like Eli’s death.

When we have tragedies like this, I am frequently brought back to the first and only time that I met legendary WYMT News Director and Station Manager Tony Turner.

Then Sheriff Ancil Carter had lost the May Primary election and had laid off some of his officers so that he could leave adequate funding for when his successor took over the next year.

I remember Tony telling Ancil that “God has a plan for everything, we just may not know what it is at the time.”

This was about 2 p.m.

Tony broadcast his story live from the Whitley County Courthouse on the 6 p.m. newscast, and headed back towards home a short time later.

About 6:30 p.m. that night, Tony was involved in a crash on KY 92E, which involved a woman and her two children.

A friend of mine, who was out at the accident site that night, told me that Tony kept praying not for himself but that the children would be alright. A few days later, Tony succumbed to his injuries from that crash and died.

To echo Tony’s words, I still believe that God has a plan for everything, even if we don’t know what it is.