COVINGTON, Ky. — A Kenton County jury found two parents guilty of reckless homicide two years after their then-3-year-old child shot and killed their 2-year-old, according to Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders.
Tashawn Adams and Selena Farrel were both convicted Friday after a jury deliberated for more than three hours following a four-day trial; Farrel was also convicted on an additional charge of abandonment of a minor.
Their convictions were on lesser charges than the ones they faced; a Kenton County grand jury indicted the couple on multiple charges, including murder, but the jury instead convicted them on charges of reckless homicide.
The shooting happened on January 22, 2024.
According to his arrest citation, Adams told police he and his child's mother, Farrell, were sleeping in their living room when they woke up to the sound of a gunshot. Adams said he saw his 2-year-old son, Khalil, bleeding and called 911.
Police said Khalil was shot in the chest. Officers who first arrived at the scene rendered aid in the middle of Warren Street before paramedics rushed Khalil to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where he later died.
Sanders held a press conference following the shooting, where he said the child's death was "very much avoidable."
Sanders said when officers arrived at the house, they found the 3-year-old in a bedroom with fresh and dried feces overflowing from an unchanged diaper.
The arrest citation says the child told an officer at the scene, "Daddy's gun is in a drawer." A forensic interviewer asked the 3-year-old who shot his younger brother, and he responded, "Me."
Detective Jim Lindeman told jurors during trial that when officers arrived, they could not find Farrell, and assumed she had gone to the hospital — but she never arrived there. Sanders said police eventually determined Farrell had an active warrant for a probation violation, and had left the scene where her child was shot to avoid arrest.
Sanders said police arrested both parents three days after the shooting, when officers "found them hiding in a Florence hotel room."
The jury heard from the couple's roommates, who testified that the children went to bed before midnight and usually woke up between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.; both parents told detectives they'd stayed up late that night and didn't wake up with the children the next morning.
The first 911 call reporting the shooting was made at 12:45 p.m. that day, according to prosecutors.
Testimony during trial also said police and social workers had both warned Adams about leaving his gun secured around the children on two previous occasions.
Following the couple's arrest in 2024, Sanders said he planned to present intensive and varied charges for Adams and Farrell, because there was no legal precedent for an unsecured gun being used by a child in Kentucky.
"There is no reported case law in Kentucky on charging a parent who failed to secure a loaded handgun from a 3-year-old child," said Sanders in 2024. "Of what we can find, it hasn't happened before ... This is a novel charge, but at the same time, I think by all means that we have enough evidence to sustain a conviction."
The jury recommended a sentence of seven years in prison for Farrell and five years in prison for Adams.
"We respect the jury's decision and we appreciate their significant prison sentences," said Sanders in a press release after the convictions. "Hopefully this case reminds everyone that both guns and children require significant care and responsibility."
