A Christian County Grand Jury will soon hear the murder case against 49-year old Bobby Spikes of Hopkinsville following a preliminary hearing Friday morning in Christian District Court.
Hopkinsville police alleged in an arrest warrant that Spikes and his girlfriend lured 35-year old Stanley Bussell to a home on Clearman Court, where Spikes then fatally shot Bussell in the head.
During testimony Friday, Detective Robert Stucki said Spikes and his girlfriend called Bussell on December 8 while he was eating dinner with his mother and asked him to come to the location on Clearman Court to look at a vehicle that needed repair.
When Bussell wasn’t home the next morning to receive his children from their mother, his mother reported him missing.
His body wasn’t discovered until 34-year old Candace Marcel of Hopkinsville was found dead in an abandoned vehicle on Cerulean Road in Trigg County and a search warrant was served at Marcel’s Clearman Court home.
Detective Stucki says Kentucky State Police immediately found Bussell dead from a gunshot wound when they entered the home and he was in a position as if he had been asleep.
Spikes and Marcel had been in some type of relationship and had once lived together, though they were no longer sharing a home, according to the detective. Kentucky State Police continue to investigate Marcel’s death and no one has been charged in her murder.
Detectives interviewed someone familiar with the Marcel and Spikes who said they saw Spikes fire a handgun at Marcel days before the incident and police recovered a 9 mm bullet from the attic in the Clearman Court home—the same type of bullet that killed Marcel and Bussell.
A Ring camera from a neighbor’s home reportedly showed Spikes present at Marcel’s home as she arrives home from work and then shows Bussell arriving around midnight on December 9. Bussell and Marcel worked together at a local factory, according to police.
Judge Foster Cotthoff determined there was enough evidence a felony had been committed to send the case to a grand jury for consideration and left bond at half a million dollars.