Inset: West Virginia State Police Sgt. Cory Maynard (West Virginia State Police). Background: Timothy Kennedy just before he learned he was convicted of murder and other charges (WCHS/YouTube).
A man in West Virginia ambushed a state trooper at the end of his shift with a flurry of gunfire and then stood over him as he continued his attack.
A Mingo County jury found Timothy Kennedy, 32, guilty of murder in the death of 37-year-old West Virginia State Police Sgt. Cory Maynard, the West Virginia Troopers Association announced on Monday.
In addition to being found guilty of first-degree murder, Kennedy was also convicted of two counts of attempted murder in the first degree, disarming a law enforcement officer, and first-degree robbery, according to courtroom footage from regional ABC and Fox affiliate WCHS.
On June 2, 2023, Maynard and multiple other troopers were called about a shooting. They responded to the 4200 block of Beech Creek Drive in Mingo County, a rural area in the southwestern part of West Virginia.
It was apparently the end of the sergeant's shift, and his colleague encouraged him not to go.
"I tried to tell Sgt. Maynard not to come," West Virginia State Trooper Jonathan Ziegler testified during the trial, per area CBS affiliate WOWK. "I told him to go home. It was time for him to go home; I said, 'Go home,' and he said 'No, I'm coming.' … I said, 'I'm dropping over at Beech Creek. I love you.' He said, 'I love you, too.'"
As Law&Crime previously reported, a then-39-year-old Benjamin Adam Baldwin had been shot. Though he was taken to a hospital and listed as in stable condition, the danger had not ended for the law enforcement officers.
Ziegler recounted Kennedy showing "absolutely no mercy" for Maynard, shooting him "not once, but three times. He showed no mercy when he stood overtop of Cory and struck Cory with a gun. As if shooting Cory wasn't enough, he had to stand overtop of him and strike him."
Maynard — a husband and father of two — was pronounced dead.
Kennedy ran from police and was arrested that night after a manhunt. His face was bruised and bloodied as he appeared for a mug shot.
The since-convicted defendant has argued that he was high on meth and hallucinating when he shot Maynard and that he couldn't remember what happened. He begged for forgiveness and said of video evidence, "I can't believe what I saw and that I was capable of doing such things."
"I wish I would have never saw drugs," he added, per WOWK. "They have ruined my life. I wish I could go back and change what happened. I'm nothing like the person you saw on video sober … I'm not a monster. I wish people knew the person I really am."
Kennedy is expected to be sentenced on July 7.
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