6A

Thursday, March 6, 2014

LaFollette Press

LaFollette

PRESS
A CLOSER LOOK:

KENNETH BARTLEY CAMPBELL COUNTY SCHOOL-SHOOTING TRIAL

Its not random when you jam a gun in somebodys
arm. It was shooting sh in a bucket.
Assistant District Attorney Mike Ripley
during closing arguments

BARTLEY: Id do anything to take it back.

Kenneth
Bartley
Trial by

NUMBERS
Editors Note: Throughout
four days of testimony, jurors
heard hours of testimony from
dozens of witnesses. Jurors
also saw more than 50 exhibits entered as evidence in the
case. The chart below summarizes the week.

BETH BRADEN
Reporter
JACKSBOROKenneth Bartley spent
two hours on the stand in his own
defense. One of those hours was crossexamination by 8th Judicial District
Attorney Lori Phillips-Jones.
His rst order of business was to
apologize.
Im sorry. Id do anything to take it
back, he told the court.
It was the rst time Bartley had publicly shared his side of what happened
at Campbell County High School on Nov.
8, 2005.
He told the court he was rummaging through his fathers bedroom that
morning in search of Valium when he
found the tiny, .22 Beretta.
I took the gun to trade to Bill Crowley
for two OxyContin 80s, he said. 80s
are 80-milligram tablets of the narcotic
painkiller. The 80-milligram variety is
one of the most potent doses available.
Bartley told the court he regularly
traded with Crowley a former drug
dealer who was convicted for robbing an
Anderson County pharmacy for pills,
though Crowley later denied ever supplying drugs to Bartley or other teens.
Bartley told the court he loaded the
clip and placed the clip into the gun
before dropping it into his right cargo
pocket. Jim Pierce and Gary Seale told
the court that Bartley loaded the gun in
the ofce.
His testimony aligned with that of
classmate Trent McCullah, who was the
rst witness called by the state. Bartley
and McCullah both said that the then14-year-old snorted a line of Xanax off a
classroom table just moments before he
was called to the ofce.
Toxicology reports later showed
Bartley had only Valium in his system.
Bartley said he was calm when he

Chris Cannon

1
2
3
4
5
CLOSING ARGUMENTS: 3 seconds of
6
frenzied panic or cold calculation
7
7
8
9
10
12
14
17
18
22
45
48
57
130
3,034
$7,500
deadly bullet

wounded are Gary

Seale and Jim Pierce

ambulances were
dispatched to school

bullets were recovered

inammatory
testimonies excluded

Kenneth Bartley talks on the stand with Lori Phillips-Jones.

followed School Resource Ofcer Susan
Phillips to the ofce she told him he
was needed because of an attendance
issue. It wasnt until all three administrators were in the ofce and the SRO
left that Bartley realized they might
know about the gun.
Im scared. I was nervous. I started
panicking already. I knew I was in trouble, Bartley said.
After the gun was drawn, the shots
were random, he told the court.
I never aimed the gun.
He claimed he had no ill will toward
any of the men he shot.
I did not intend to hurt anybody, he

said. I never thought anything like this

would happen.
I know how bad it hurt people, too
many people.
On cross-examination, Phillips-Jones
asked Bartley why he didnt ride his
four-wheeler to Crowleys home as he
had done before.
I thought itd be easier to ride home
with his son, he answered.
You thought itd be easier to take a
loaded gun to school! she said.
He admitted he didnt have a history of
making the right choices.
Ive made a lot of bad decisions in my
life, he said.

bullets could be held

in the .22 magazine
counts Bartley was
indicted on

BETH BRADEN
Reporter

defense witnesses
called
years of judicial
battles for Bartley

days Gary Seale

spent in the hospital

days Jim Pierce

spent in the hospital
jurors heard
the case

age of Bartley in
November 2005

x 9 feet were the

ofces dimensions
witnesses called
by the state
is Bartleys
current age

years was Bartleys

original sentence
was the age of
Ken Bruce

Chris Cannon
District Attorney Lori Phillips-Jones placed a photo of Ken
Bruce in the stand. She said there was one witness the jury
would not hear from.

JACKSBOROThere were at
least 20 chances for Kenneth
Bartley to prevent the tragedy
on Nov. 8, 2005, according
to Assistant District Attorney
Mike Ripley.
The fact that he neither gave
the gun up voluntarily when
he rst encountered school
resource ofcer Susan Phillips
and that he didnt run away
when he had the men cornered in the ofce point to his
intent to do harm, according
to Ripley.
Its not random when you
jam a gun in somebodys arm,
Ripley said. It was shooting
sh in a bucket. There wasnt
any place for them to go.
Defense attorney Greg Isaacs
painted Little Kenny as a
quiet child with a drug problem confronted by adults who
made poor decisions.
Ripley said 20 times Kenny
Bartley had the chancebut
in this situation, no one called
police. No one asked for assistance, Isaacs said.
Bartley is more than Little
Kenny, Phillips-Jones maintained.
Hes not just little Kenny
Bartley. Hes a drug dealer.
Hes got his pills. Hes got his
gun, she said.
The gun powder burns on
Ken Bruces back took away
the idea that Bartley shot

without aiming as he testied,

Phillips-Jones said.
He cant explain away how
he randomly shot point blank
in the back of Mr. Bruce.
Medical
Examiner
Dr.
Darinka Miluesnic-Polchan
testied earlier last week that
the gun powder and residue on
Bruces body implied that he
had been shot at an extremely
close range.
Bullet trajectory indicated
Bruce had likely been in a
submissive stance with his
arms up when he was killed.
What [Bartley] really is, is
a liar, a murderer and a drug
dealer, she said.
Isaacs, who asked the jury
to consider whether or not
Bartley really meant to kill
anyone, quoted a closing argument from defense attorney
Clarence Darrow in a 1924
murder trial for two teens
charged with rst-degree murder.
Before I would tie a noose
around the neck of a boy, I
would try to call back my mind
the emotions of youth. I would
try to remember what world
looked like to me when I was a
child. I would try to remember
how strong were these instinctive, persistent emotions that
moved life. I would try to
remember how weak and inefcient was youth in presence
of the surging, controlling feelings of the child, Isaacs said
to the court.

items entered as
exhibits/evidence
minutes of
deliberation

total days
in jail
bond

Chris Cannon
Kenny Bartley and Greg Isaacs smile on the courthouse steps.

Chris Cannon
The D.A. argues that Ken Bruces death wasnt an accident.