By RONNIE ELLIS
GLASGOW — The day before his former fiancée was shot to death and he was found with his wrists cut, former state representative Steve Nunn asked to have a monument engraved with his name, birth date and the date of his death – the following day, Sept. 11, 2009.
The next morning, 29-year old Amanda Ross, who had once been engaged to Nunn but later accused him of domestic abuse, was found shot outside her Lexington condominium. She later died at the University of Kentucky Hospital. Hours later, Nunn was apprehended with his wrists cut and hiding in the cemetery in Hart County where his parents, former Gov. Louie B. Nunn and Beula Nunn, are buried.
In March, a judge placed Nunn under a domestic violence order after Ross said he’d hit her in the face four times in her home. She’d also lodged a complaint of domestic abuse in January of 2009. In August, Nunn entered an Alford plea – admitting no guilt but acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him – and was ordered to stay away from Ross, do community service and undergo alcohol assessment and counseling.
Nunn has since been charged with the murder of Ross and is lodged in the Hart County Jail.
Abe Shelton, owner of Borders Monument, said Nunn wanted to re-engrave a monument originally intended for his mother’s grave before her body was moved from the Glasgow Cemetery to the Cosby Cemetery where Louie Nunn is buried and where another stone was used to mark her grave.
Shelton said it’s not unusual for people to pre-purchase grave stones and he gave Nunn a form on which to list biographical data. But when Nunn handed him the form, Shelton saw he’d filled in the date of death – the next day, Friday, Sept. 11.
“He wrote his birthday and stuff, but then I saw he wrote down his date of death,” Shelton said.
Shelton, who said he doesn’t know Nunn well, didn’t ask about the date of death. When Nunn left, Shelton called Follis Crow, owner of Crow Funeral Home and a friend of Nunn’s since their school days.
“I just was trying to find him some help,” Shelton said. “I didn’t ever see him hurting anyone else.”
When Crow didn’t answer, Shelton went to Crow’s house where he told him of Nunn’s unusual request.
“Abe told me and I called Phillip (Bale),” a friend of Nunn’s and a family physician in Glasgow. Crow said. He said Bale immediately went to Nunn’s home to talk to him and they eventually went to dinner with Jimmy Bewley, another friend of Nunn’s. Bale could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Bewley said he’d also received a call from a friend who was concerned about Nunn’s state of mind.
“I called him, but he didn’t answer,” said Bewley, golf pro at Barren River State Park about 14 miles south of Glasgow. Bewley left work to go to Nunn’s house. On the way, he received a call from Nunn asking Bewley to join him and Bale at The Little Taste of Texas, a Glasgow restaurant.
At dinner, Nunn told Bewley and Bale he was fine and they needn’t worry.
“I felt like he was OK,” Bewley said. “I couldn’t imagine in a 1,000 years he would hurt someone or hurt himself. What happened is just mind-boggling.”
Bewley met Ross at the inauguration of Gov. Steve Beshear, which she attended with Nunn.
“I thought she was a wonderful person,” Bewley said. “I just feel for the Ross family. And (Nunn’s) kids are suffering too and I feel for them.”
Bewley said Nunn was depressed by the negative publicity from the domestic violence charges, and they had previously talked once or twice about it.
“But it never pertained to her, it was just about him,” Bewley said. He said Nunn said nothing about harming Ross or himself at the Thursday evening dinner. “He said he was fine, everything was OK.”
Another friend of Nunn’s, Danny Gibson, who owns the Bailey-Gibson Buick Pontiac GMC car dealership, saw Nunn just a couple of days earlier. Nunn came by Gibson’s office to drop off his GMC Yukon for service and to use Gibson’s fax machine to send paper work about his community service to the Fayette County courts.
“I drove him home,” Gibson said. “He was really down in the dumps.”
Gibson said Nunn complained that Ross had ruined his life.
“I told him, no, you’ve ruined your life,” Gibson continued. “You need to go somewhere and start over. You’ve still got your children to take care of. And he just said, ‘They’ll be all right.’”
Gibson and Crow said they were stunned Friday when word spread Ross had been shot to death and authorities were looking for Nunn. Both had briefly met Ross and said they are “devastated” by Friday’s events. Neither had thought Nunn capable of harming himself or others.
When they left the restaurant Thursday night, Bewley asked Nunn to come stay with him at his southern Barren County home for a few days.
“I told him we’d take it easy, go fishing and go check on the boat,” Bewley said. “He said he’d call me the next morning. But he never called. I just can’t believe it. It’s just awful.”
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.
