Published: May 08, 2008 11:31 pm            

Reward offered for info in son’s slaying

Mother of Robert Sammons seeks closure, answers about 2005 killing

ASHLAND — For Hattie McConnell, the past 21/2 years have been one long cycle of grief and despair.

She said the fact that the person who murdered her son, Robert “Robo” Sammons, has never been caught is like a wound that won’t heal.

“It has been miserable,” McConnell said Thursday. “There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about my son. I cry all the time. I just don’t have any closure.”

Now, with the assistance of the Kentucky State Police, McConnell, who lives in Wurtland, is taking steps that she hopes will bring about an end to her ordeal.

Using money from a life insurance settlement she received following the recent death of her husband, McConnell is putting up a $5,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of her son’s killer or killers.

The KSP is chipping in an additional $1,000 through its Target Arson program, said Trooper Elliott Gollihue, the lead investigator in Sammons’ slaying.

McConnell said the last time she saw her son alive was Oct. 26, 2005. She was living in South Shore at the time, she said, and Sammons, an avid hunter, went out into the woods near her home to look for deer tracks.

Two days later, the body of 35-year-old Sammons — who acquired the nickname “Robo” as a child, according to his mother — was found stuffed in the trunk of his burned-out Chevrolet Camaro on Wallace Road, off Hall Ridge Road in rural Boyd County.

Police have never said how Sammons was killed, and Gollihue said that’s information that he’s still not willing to divulge. The motive for Sammons’ slaying also is unclear, he said.

McConnell said she couldn’t begin to fathom why anyone would want her son dead. He was a generous, good-natured sort who was adored by his friends and who never met a stranger, she said.

Gollihue said that’s been borne out by those he has spoken to during the course of his investigation.

“People I’ve talked to have said nothing but good things about Robo,” he said.

McConnell said her son, who worked in construction and also did some surveying, had a few minor brushes with the law, including drunk-driving and drug possession charges, but those were years before his death.

He once pursued and helped police apprehend a man armed with a shotgun who had attempted to rob a convenience store he had gone into to purchase a soft drink, she said.

McConnell said Sammons’ death and the lack of an arrest in his slaying also haunts his older brother, Matt, who lives in Lexington.

“He’s angry, but he’s holding everything inside,” she said. “He just goes on day to day grieving.”

Sammons’ slaying is one of six open homicide cases on the books at the Ashland KSP post, which covers Boyd, Carter, Greenup and Lawrence counties.

Gollihue said it’s one that he would like to get off of his plate once and for all.

“We’ve put a lot of man-hours into this case,” he said, noting that Detective Rodney Carroll, the post’s arson investigator, was also involved in the probe due to the car being burned.

Gollihue said he had received some anonymous letters regarding the case, but they raised more questions than they answered.

Gollihue urges anyone with information about the case to call him at (606) 928-6421 or (877) 416-1208. Callers may remain anonymous.

Information also may be submitted anonymously via the KSP’s Web site, kentuckystatepolice.org, by clicking on the “Post 14” and “Cold Cases” links, Gollihue said.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

        

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