Louisville man in prison for 1981 rape, murder wants to come home

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A man serving a life sentence for what some consider one of Louisville's most brutal murders wants to come home.

Supporters say Kevin Stanford has been rehabilitated and paid his debt to society. But the family of his victim is fighting to keep him behind bars.

In 1981, Mona Mills was 17-years-old when her sister was raped and murdered.

"My sister's name is Barbel Poore," Mills said. "Being a very close-knit family, it was a mother and her three daughters and Barbel's baby."

Poore, 20, was a single mother working at a gas station at the corner of Cane Run Road and Crums Lane and supporting a 10-month-old daughter.

"When Babel did not arrive home from work, 15 minutes later, I immediately was calling the gas station that she worked at," Mills said.

Unable to reach her sister, Mills contacted their mother.

"My mother went to the gas station after work," she said. "She found the pumps on, the lights off. She was with a friend who realized they had entered a crime scene."

A few hours later, Mill said their mother arrived home with a police chaplain, who shared devastating news.

"He said, 'Your sister has been raped.' That's how he began," Mills said. "And my younger sister stopped him from going forward. It was like she knew it was coming, and she was screaming. And finally, he said, 'and murdered.'"

Police eventually arrested and charged three teenagers with the crime.

Prosecutors said Stanford and David Buchanan raped the young mother, and Troy Johnson was the getaway driver. Buchanan later testified that he and Johnson followed as Stanford drove Poore's car to an isolated area, allowed her to smoke a cigarette and then shot her in the face and head.

Police said after the murder, Stanford returned to the gas station and stole 300 cartons of cigarettes, gasoline and a small amount of cash.

"His crimes deserved nothing less than death after the crimes he committed against my sister," Mills said.

In 1982, Stanford was sentenced to death, Buchanan life in prison and Johnson several months in a juvenile facility. However, in 2003, Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton commuted Stanford's sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

"I was furious," Mills said. "It had been right at 22 years. We were at the end. It was time to get this over with."

And in 2017, Stanford filed a petition in federal court, asking for a new sentencing hearing.

"It was expected, and I knew I had to get myself back into fight mode," Mills said.

Tim Arnold with the Department of Public Advocacy, is serving as Stanford's attorney. He said Stanford had absolutely no direction in 1981.

"He was the victim of some of the worst abuse and neglect of anybody I've ever known," Arnold said. "And so his life was a disaster at the time, and he needed prison to be able to heal from that."

Arnold said not only has Stanford been rehabilitated, but he argues life without parole is greater than the maximum sentence authorized by the legislature.

"He's seeking nothing more than just the maximum available sentence under the law," Arnold said. "What he has is more than the maximum available sentence under the law, and that's just not right."

Earlier this month, the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld Stanford's sentence.

"Essentially, their decision was since we have never seen this before, we aren't going to change the opinion," Arnold said. "And I don't think that's right."

Arnold said they're in the process of appealing the sentence to the Kentucky Supreme Court, but that's not Stanford's only hope.

"Kevin Stanford's mother and sister came to The Voices of Louisville and asked that we support them," said Bishop Dennis Lyons, president of The Voices of Louisville.

Lyons said his prison outreach ministry has been communicating with Stanford and collected more than 800 signatures on a petition on his behalf.

"We want to use those signatures to go to the governor and see if we can seek some clemency," Lyons said.

Arnold said if you met Stanford, you'd see why that is.

"His life was a disaster when he was arrested," Arnold said. "He is a very calm, respectful man today."

While Arnold and others fight for Stanford second chance, Mills believes, even in 1981, Stanford was old enough to know right from wrong.

"Same age as I was," she said. "I became a mom overnight to a 10-month-old little girl because my mother struggled so hard and ended up dying five years later.

"Sometimes, we make bad decisions on who we might date. Or, you know, maybe we swipe something out of a store. That's silly. We don't rape, sodomized and murder. I had promised my dad on my dad's deathbed I would see this through."

Although it has been 40 years, Mills said she often thinks about her sister and what could have been.

"I would sit and I would think, 'What would she look like today? What would she be doing? Would she have had more children?'" said Mills, who is now dedicated to working with the families of other crime victims. "I can't do it long, because it's like torturing myself. She was quite attractive, very pretty woman."