Missing person investigation leads to grisly crime scene
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By Eugenia Jones {Editor}
[email protected]
Photos by Eugenia Jones Daniel Kearney was taken into custody & charged with murder.
Within days of listing 36-year-old Damian Alexander Poole as a missing person in NCIC and asking for the public’s help in locating him, local deputies made a grisly discovery.
The McCreary County Sheriff’s Office responded quickly when the Colorado mother of Damian Alexander Poole contacted their office late in the afternoon on September 8, 2025, to file a missing person report regarding her son. According to the mother, Poole and a long-time acquaintance, 39-year-old Daniel Kearney, moved from Colorado to McCreary County in July 2024. The two lived at a home on 111 Farm Ridge Road in Stearns. The mother’s last contact with her son was a text message she received on July 18, 2025. During the weeks between the mother’s receipt of that message and September 8, Kearney reportedly told several people that Poole left in July to visit his ailing father in Colorado. Poole’s mother was skeptical, noting that for the first time in nearly 30 years, she did not hear from Damian on his August 27 birthday. Increasingly worried, the mother decided to file an official missing person report. Deputy Sheriff Daniel Taylor of the McCreary County Sheriff’s Office took the call, entered Poole into NCIC, and began an investigation. The Sheriff’s office quickly obtained enough information to establish probable cause and secured a search warrant for Poole and Kearney’s residence.
On Thursday, September 11, Deputy Taylor, Chief Deputy Dustin Ridner, K9 Deputies Chris Carter and Alex Jones, and Commonwealth Attorney Investigator Wayne Bird arrived at the Farm Ridge Road residence, which consisted of a house with an adjacent motor home to the left and a camper to the right, to execute the search warrant. When officers arrived, they knocked on the front door of the house but received no response. When they called out Kearney’s name, officers heard a reaction from inside the camper. The deputies then located Kearney inside the camper. Upon making contact with Kearney, the deputies advised him of the search warrant and told him that he was not free to go and was detained.
While McCreary County Deputy Sheriffs were executing the search warrant, they made a grisly discovery inside the house: a badly decomposed body with multiple gunshot wounds, covered with blankets and other articles made from fabric, and the body appeared to have been moved to the rear part of the house, where it was found. The remains of two dogs were also located in the house.
Upon discovering the body, K9 Deputies Chris Carter and Alex Jones Mirandized Kearney, secured the crime scene, and established an entry control point. Meanwhile, McCreary County Chief Deputy Dustin Ridner contacted the Kentucky State Police (KSP), who mobilized their crime scene response unit and joined the investigation. McCreary County Animal Control responded to remove several dogs from around the residence. Chief Deputy Ridner transported Kearney to the McCreary County Sheriff’s Office, where KSP Detective Matt Parmley interviewed the suspect.
McCreary County Coroner Tim Corder and Deputy Coroner Cameron Gilreath pronounced the victim dead at 11:30 p.m. The body was transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort for autopsy and, due to decomposition, identification. Mr. Poole’s family in Colorado was notified of the situation, and dental records were obtained to assist with identification. Preliminary autopsy results indicate that the victim had five gunshot wounds entering from the back to the front of the head and neck. Additionally, the victim had three gunshot wounds to the left upper extremity.
Processing the crime scene took the remainder of Thursday night and into the wee hours of Friday morning. KSP discovered bloodied material and an AR-style rifle in the house. In searching the camper where Kearney was initially located, KSP found several firearms and a notebook with a checklist of things to do, including cleaning up the residence, getting rid of evidence, painting everything with Kilz, and disposing of the body. There was also a reference to burning anything left and spreading ashes on roadways outside of Kentucky. A large burn pile area was located behind the residence.
Neighbors in the community indicated that Poole and Kearney frequently fought and had loud arguments.
Following his arrest, 39-year-old Daniel Kearney was transported and lodged in the Knox County Detention Center. KSP charged Kearney with (1) Murder, (2) Abuse of a Corpse, (3) Tampering with Physical Evidence, and (4) Cruelty to Animals.
Kearney is currently being held under $1 million bond and will be arraigned in court on charges this Thursday, September 18.
The case remains under active investigation by KSP Detective Matthew Parmley, with assistance from Kentucky State Police personnel, the McCreary County Sheriff’s Office, and the McCreary County Coroner’s Office.
