Published: May 05, 2008 11:46 pm            

Triple murder trial to be heard in Johnson

Robert Drown faces death penalty in Carter slayings

GRAYSON — The triple murder, rape and arson trial of Robert Lee Drown will take place in Johnson County.

Judge Rebecca Phillips made that announcement during a brief hearing Monday in Carter Circuit Court.

The ruling came as no surprise. Phillips had indicated during a February hearing that she was leaning toward Paintsville as the location for the trial, which is scheduled to begin on Dec. 1.

Drown is facing the death penalty in the slayings of Jennifer Ison, 31, and her daughters, Shannah, 10, and Marisa, 3. Phillips’ decision on a venue for the trial came four days shy of the first anniversary of the murders.

Phillips said her choice of Johnson County was based on a number of factors, including travel distance from Carter County and the fact that Johnson has a new court facility with secured access and a nearby detention center.

Also, while Johnson County is in the same general media coverage area as Carter, Phillips said she believed it was “removed enough” that the general population would not have specific knowledge of the case, thereby making it easier to select an impartial jury.

Phillips also said that Judge John David Preston had agreed to rearrange his docket so that his courtroom will be available for all but two days in December.

The bodies of Ison, a labor and delivery nurse at Cabell Huntington Hospital, and her daughters were found in their burned-out mobile home on Canoe Run. Authorities realized that foul play was involved in their deaths when a detective noticed that Jennifer Ison had an electrical cord wrapped around her neck.

Further investigation revealed that Shannah Ison had been violently raped. Autopsies revealed that Jennifer Ison died of strangulation, Shannah Ison died of blunt-force head trauma and Marisa Ison died in the fire.

Authorities said that Drown and Jennifer Ison met two nights before the slayings at a bar in Kenova. Kentucky State Police detectives said that they linked Drown to the murders through cell phone records and DNA evidence.

The Drown case will not be the first high-profile criminal proceeding from Carter County to take in Paintsville. Gary Scott Pennington, who shot a teacher and a custodian to death at East Carter High School, then held a roomful of students at gunpoint in January 1993, was tried and convicted there in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison.

Phillips scheduled another pre-trial hearing for 8:30 a.m. June 16. She also continued a pre-trial conference in an unrelated assault case against Drown until then. That case stems from a fracas in the Carter County Detention Center during which Drown allegedly punched a fellow inmate after the two got into an argument over what they were going to watch on television.

        

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