Louisville Metro agrees to pay $20.5 million to men wrongfully convicted in 1992 'Satanic ritual' murder

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The city of Louisville agreed to pay $20.5 million to two men who were alleged victims of corrupt former police officer Mark Handy and the department, which played a central role in their wrongful conviction for the alleged "satanic ritual" killing of Rhonda Sue Warford in 1992.

Jeffrey Clark and Keith Hardin spent more than two decades in prison before they were released in 2016 after the Kentucky Innocence Project took on the case.

In a news release Friday, attorneys for Clark and Hardin announced the settlement, which "stems from egregious misconduct" committed by Handy and the Louisville Metro Police Department.

"Today's settlement says loudly and clearly that (Clark and Hardin) are innocent, and that Louisville detectives and supervisors responsible for this injustice will be held accountable," said attorney Nick Brustin.

The lawsuit, filed in 2017, claims Clark and Hardin were convicted based on fabricated statements they never made and forensic evidence prosecutors "wrongly" argue Hardin left behind on the victim's body.

DNA evidence has now "conclusively proven that that evidence was left by another man, not Hardin or Clark," the suits alleged.

In 2021, Handy pleaded guilty to perjury and tampering with physical evidence and was ordered to spend one year behind bars for his actions in two other wrongful arrest and conviction cases.

He was released just weeks into his sentence.

Four people with a conviction involving Handy have been exonerated. Handy's investigations are the focus of multiple wrongful imprisonment lawsuits. So far, the city has paid about $30 million for wrongful conviction cases involving Handy.

The news release praised current Louisville leadership for settling the case and acknowledging the misconduct.

"Louisville's current leadership is to be applauded for doing what they can to resolve the decades of injustice inflicted upon" Clark and Hardin, said attorney Elliot Slosar. "After years of litigation, the City of Louisville finally acknowledges 20 million different ways that Jeff and Keith are innocent and that egregious police misconduct will no longer be tolerated."

Kevin Trager, a spokesman for Mayor Craig Greenberg, said in a statement that, "After many years of ongoing litigation, we have reached an important conclusion with this settlement. The criminal investigation involving the death of Ms. Warford is active and ongoing and we remain hopeful her family will see justice.”

The city has spent more than $60 million settling lawsuits against LMPD just since 2017, more than all but a few other departments in the country in that time period.

The lawsuit is still pending against other defendants, including the Meade County Sheriff's office and Kentucky State Police.

Investigators were accused of ignoring other suspects, fabricating, destroying and concealing evidence and covering up misconduct by multiple Louisville police officers, detectives and supervisors, among others.

The lawsuit references several wrongful convictions involving Louisville police around the same time period, indicating there was a pattern by the department.

For example, Kerry Porter wrongfully served 14 years in prison before being exonerated in 2011 of the 1996 murder of Louisville truck driver Tyrone Camp.

Edwin Chandler received $8.5 million in 2012 after spending nine years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

The Louisville Metro Police Department and former Handy — who was also involved in the Chandler case — are accused of working with Meade County Sheriff Joseph Greer, and others, to create a "false theory" that Clark and Hardin murdered Warford in a Satanic ritual killing.

When Handy failed to get the men to confess after falsely telling them they had failed a polygraph, Handy "simply fabricated inculpatory statements," including that Clark admitted sacrificing animals as part of a Satanic ritual and later decided that he wanted to "do a human," according to the lawsuit.

And the only physical evidence tying Clark or Hardin to the murder — a hair found on the victim's clothing — was "also a sham," the suits say. A Kentucky State Police official "falsely" told prosecutors the hair matched Hardin, but DNA testing in 2014 excluded him and Clark.

Warford disappeared on April 2, 1992, and was found stabbed to death in a field in Meade County, about 50 miles from her Louisville home. Both Louisville and Meade County investigators worked the case.

Warford's family told police that she had been dating Hardin and that he worshiped Satan. The lawsuits acknowledge that Hardin "had practiced modern Satanism, which forbids blood sacrifice and killing of any kind."

Clark, according to the suit, never practiced Satanism.

In September 1993, a witness told a grand jury that Warford's ex-boyfriend — a convicted felon — had admitted killing her. But investigators ignored the suspect and "continued to frame Clark and Hardin for a murder that they did not commit," according to the suit.

Handy falsified statements that Hardin sacrificed animals and framed Warford's murder as a ritual killing, according to the suit.

When Clark refused to implicate Hardin during an interrogation, according to the suits, a sheriff "placed a pistol on the table and said, in sum or substance, 'You might want to reconsider that or bad things can happen.'"

In addition, the lawsuit claims that investigators "fabricated" the time of Warford's death.

Prosecutors were also accused of wrongly telling the jury that a broken cup and bloody rag seized from Hardin's bedroom was a "chalice" the men drank animal blood from. Hardin said the blood was from cutting his hand. DNA testing later found Hardin was telling the truth and it was his blood.

This story may be updated.