Three men charged in 13-month old murder Floyd County woman Amber Spradlin

It was a moment Debbie Hall had been hoping and waiting for since her cousin Amber Spradlin was murdered June 18th of last year – the arrest of Mike McKinney II, the dentist in whose home Spradlin was found dead, stabbed multiple times. She says when the grand jury finished their work Tuesday, she headed to The Brickhouse, a restaurant co-owned by McKinney – where her cousin was a hostess.

“I got to video Mike McKinney being escorted out with state troopers on each side of him, and he was handcuffed, and they put him in the back of their cruiser, and I was just right there, just a few from it all. And it just, it was a really good feeling to see that finally.”

McKinney II is charged with seven counts of complicity to tampering with physical evidence. His son, Michael McKinney III, is charged with Spradlin’s murder and the complicity charges. A third man, Josh Mullins, also faces complicity charges. Hall says she’s not the only community member who’d been concerned the well-connected dentist and his son wouldn’t be charged.

“That's why I have been so vocal, because I knew that there was a possibility that, you know there's, there's other people around here have been murdered, and nothing happened to the ones who did it to them. So, yeah, I was afraid that would be a possibility too.”

In a statement, Floyd County Commonwealth’s Attorney Brent Turner said the investigation was not affected by politics or the status of the suspects. He praised state police and said the reason the case took so long to get to the grand jury was the tremendous backlog at the KSP crime lab.

Hall says she believes justice will prevail.

“Yes, I do. I think the evidence is pretty strong. The indictments are public, and it actually lists as far as covering up what they did.”

** WEKU is working hard to be a leading source for public service, and fact-based journalism. Monthly supporters are the top funding source for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation .