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William Eugene
THOMPSON
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Murder for hire -Escape
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: 1974 / 1986
Date
of arrest:
May 9,
1986
Date of birth: July
26,
1951
Victims profile: ??? / Fred Cash (his prison farm
supervisor)
THOMPSON, WILLIAM EUGENE,
DOB 7-26-51, was sentenced to death March 18, 1998 in Graves County.
William Thompson entered a plea of
guilty on January 12, 1995, to the following charges: Capital Murder,
Robbery in the First Degree, and Escape in the First Degree, which
occurred on May 9, 1986.
William Thompson, of Pike County,
Kentucky was sentenced to life for the 1986 murder of Correctional
Officer Fred Cash at the Western Kentucky Farm Center in Graves County
on March 18, 1998.
Thompson was currently serving a
life sentence at the Western Kentucky Farm Center for the offense of
willful murder for hire in Pike County. While working with an inmate
crew at the dairy, Thompson struck Correctional Officer Fred Cash
repeatedly in the head with a hammer, dragged the body into a barn
stall, and fled in the prison farm van.
Police arrested Thompson in a bus
station on his way to Indiana. Thompson was convicted and sentenced to
death in October 1986 in Lyon County, but seven years later the state
Supreme Court threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial.
Thompson also won a change of venue from Lyon County to Graves County.
This killer was serving a life sentence for a murder for hire in Pike
County. While serving that sentence in 1986 in Lyon County, he
reported for prisoner work detail. While on work detail, he took a
hammer and hit a prison guard 12 times in the head, killing him.
After killing the guard, he took the victim's body to a nearby barn
where he took the victim's wallet, keys, and knife. He then drove the
prison van to a bus station to try and escape.
