WQXE News

Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson says he was disappointed with the low turnout for a presentation on sextortion the department hosted via Zoom, so after getting community feedback on how to improve the idea and reach more people the police department is hosting an in-person event on sexual assault and related issues on April 15.

“We’re going to give a presentation,” Richardson said. “It’s going to start at 6 p.m. at the Extension Office here in Larue County up on Old Elizabethtown Road, and what we will do is we’ll start out with basically what are the issues that we’re seeing here in our community and then we will talk about how HPD investigates those.”

Richardson said the event ties into April being Child Abuse Awareness Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The event is an opportunity to hear from the HPD as well as the organizations that assist them.

“We are going to start out with just basically ‘this is what we’re seeing’ and then we’re going to introduce our community partners,” Richardson said. “We have some folks from Silverleaf, I’ve invited CommuniCare, Lincoln Trail BHH is coming, so we’ll have folks there to explain to the community this is what their role is in our investigations and what services they offer for the community.”

The ultimate goal of the event is to share information and connect residents with resources.

“If anybody wants to come, we encourage in-person, that way you can actually meet and see everybody,” Richardson said. “You’ll get to see some of the sexual assault investigators from the police department. You’ll get to ask questions. Any questions that we have from the community, they can email me questions. They can go on our Facebook page and message me questions that they want answered, and we’ll try to address those there in the presentation.”

The event will be recorded and made available for viewing for anybody unable to attend in person.

The Hodgenville Police Department has released details on several cases their officers investigated last week.

On April 1, HPD officers conducted several controlled buy attempts of vapes to underage informants. In these investigations, underage informants go into a store and attempt to purchase vapes or vape products. Jennifer Timmer, a clerk at the Hometown Mini Mart on Lincoln Farm Road, was charged with Unlawful Transaction with a Minor.

Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson said it was worth noting that the store in this case has taken actions to prevent underage sales.

“The store went back and put in a fail-safe in the computer where the register will not let you make that purchase without scanning their driver’s license, and something the store did on their own, they were not mandated to do that,” Richardson said. “That’s just what they did, and in this instance the clerk actually scanned her own driver’s license to bypass that fail-safe to sell that product to the child.”

Later, on April 3, the HPD’s search for a fugitive led to two arrests.

Officers had been searching for Jeremy Butler for about a week as he was wanted on warrants for several drug-related charges. The investigation led officers to an address on Joe Brown Road

“We got a tip to where he was at,” Richardson said. “We went to that address, knocked on the door. The young man that rented that residence allowed us in and Mr. Butler was located inside that home, and then there was another female that was on scene and when we checked her she also came back with a child support warrant for a $2,000 warrant out of Hardin County for being behind on her child support, so she was located and arrested as well.”

The woman arrested is Savannah Moreland of Maryland. Both Moreland and Butler were transported to the LaRue County Detention Center at the time of their arrests.