Valarie Honeycutt Spears
·4 min read
The man convicted in the 1994 murder of University of Kentucky football player Trent DiGiuro has been charged with assault and terroristic threatening for allegedly running over his mother and another women’s legs with his electric wheelchair and threatening to kill them both.
Shane Ragland, 50, was arrested and charged with two counts of assault, fourth degree, and two counts of third degree terroristic threatening on Tuesday, according to Franklin District Court records.
Kathy Moore, Ragland’s mother, says in an arrest warrant her son threatened to kill her, ran over her with his electric wheelchair and hit her with his arms and hands 5 p.m. June 15.
Franklin County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Phillip Ray said he observed bruising on Moore’s leg consistent with being hit with a motorized wheelchair. Moore told the law enforcement officer that Ragland forced her out of her house and refused to let her back in.
“Ms. Moore says she is scared for her life when she is around him and she is afraid to return home while he’s there. She reports the abuse and death threats have been ongoing for several months,” the arrest warrant said.
A second arrest warrant said on June 15, Moore called a friend, identified as Toni Quire. Moore said she had been forced out of her home by her son and needed help getting back in, according to the arrest warrant.
Once inside the home, Quire said Ragland ran over her legs with his motorized wheelchair and hit her with his arms and hands. Ray said he observed bruising to both Quire’s arms and legs consistent with her statements.
The second arrest warrant alleges on June 15, in a video taken by Quire, a man’s voice was on the video telling Quire he would kill her if she didn’t leave his home.
Ragland allegedly told Quire “if he could could get ahold of his Colt .45 he would shoot her in the head.”
Ragland remained in the Franklin County Regional Jail Thursday morning.
After Ragland was released from prison following his 2002 murder conviction, he was injured in a traffic accident and now uses a wheelchair.
UK football player Trent DiGiuro, Shane Ragland case history
In 1994, Trent DiGiuro, an offensive lineman for UK, was fatally shot outside his home in Lexington while celebrating his upcoming birthday. He was just three days away from turning 21 years old.
It was one of Lexington’s most baffling whodunits until 2000, when Shane Ragland’s ex-girlfriend came forward and said he killed the Oldham County native. Ragland, a member of a prominent Frankfort family, allegedly held a grudge over being blackballed from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
Ragland used a sniper’s rifle to kill the 6-foot-2, 277-pound DiGiuro on July 17, 1994. According to the statement of the ex-girlfriend, Aimee Lloyd, Ragland lived a few doors down from the victim at the time of the shooting. Ragland told Lloyd that he observed a party going on at DiGiuro’s house that night, put his rifle in a bag and rode a bicycle to an area across the street from DiGiuro’s home.
Ragland said he shot DiGiuro in the head while he sat on his front porch, according to Lloyd.
Ragland was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2002 for the murder of DiGiuro, but the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2006 when it discovered an FBI agent lied during a pretrial conference.
A graduate from UK, Ragland later pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and he was released from jail later in 2006 after he was given credit for previous time served.
DiGiuro’s family sued Ragland, and in 2008, the family was awarded $63.3 million, including $3.3 million in lost wages. It was the largest amount awarded in Fayette County and the second-largest ever in Kentucky.
According to news reports, Ragland sustained a spinal cord injury in a 2012 traffic accident and has used a wheelchair since.
Digiuro’s murder has been the subject of television specials, including on the Oxygen Network and NBC’s “Dateline”.
In 2014, WAVE-TV reported that domestic violence charges against Ragland were dropped. They were filed after his girlfriend claimed he tried to hit her in the head with a metal rod, tried to run her over with his wheelchair and repeatedly threatened to kill her, the station reported.
Online court records say Ragland was convicted in 2013 in Franklin District Court of alcohol intoxication in a public place and possessing an open alcohol beverage container in a vehicle.
Reporter Mike Stunson contributed to this report. This is a developing story and will be updated.
