GLASGOW — Steve Nunn’s name had been gold in this town for a long time.

His father, Louie Nunn, was elected county judge in 1953 and went on to run twice for governor, losing in 1963 and then becoming the first Republican governor in Kentucky in 24 years when he came back to win the 1967 election.

Steve Nunn, now 56, was a sophomore in high school when his dad became governor, and he moved into the mansion and went to school in Frankfort. But Barren County was home, and the younger Nunn’s friends often came to spend the weekend in the mansion. Nunn returned to live in Barren County after his college days and an internship in the White House during the Nixon Administration.

By the 1990s he was in the General Assembly. And many, including Nunn and his mother Beula Nunn, thought one day he’d sit in the same office his father once commanded.

“He had it all for such a long time,” said Robert “Buddy” Alexander, a defense attorney whose father was Barren County sheriff when the elder Nunn was county judge.

But now, the community where the Nunn name was royalty is stunned, staggered by news last Friday that Nunn’s former fiancée, 29-year old Amanda Ross, had been shot and killed and Nunn was later found with his wrists cut in the Hart County cemetery where his parents are buried. Nunn has since been charged with murder.

“It’s almost disbelief,” said Alexander.

Most say they couldn’t believe the news and then shake their heads or offer thoughts and prayers for Ross’ family and for Nunn’s three children from his first marriage, all now grown.

On Monday evening, the Barren County Republican Party had a meeting in a downtown Glasgow restaurant, George J’s.

“I was certainly shocked when I heard the girl was shot,” said Mark Haines as he left the meeting. He said the meeting included a prayer for Nunn, his family and the family of Ross.

Others, some longtime associates of both Louie and Steve Nunn, declined to talk about the events that dominate every conversation in the rural community 30 miles east of Bowling Green.

Glasgow City Council member Doug Isenberg said shock is the only word that adequately sums up local reaction.

“Everybody is shocked,” he said. “Sadness, disappointment, shock. It’s awful.”

There were rumors, often at election time, when Nunn had an opponent. Nunn had suffered a series of professional and personal setbacks: he finished far back of Ernie Fletcher in the 2003 Republican primary for governor. In 2004, Louie Nunn died.

For years, the two men had been estranged, at times not speaking. But Nunn’s second wife, Tracey Damron Nunn, helped them reconcile and the elder Nunn campaigned for his son in 2003. Many think Nunn never recovered from his father’s death so soon after they’d mended fences.

Then he and Tracey divorced, and there were more stories of alcoholism and parties. Democrat Johnny Bell took on Nunn for his House seat in 2006 and beat him. Suddenly, Nunn’s world had collapsed.

He came back briefly, crossing party lines to endorse Steve Beshear for governor and when Beshear ousted Fletcher, he rewarded Nunn with a job as Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet for Human Resources. Nunn had long championed legislation for the vulnerable, especially the mentally disabled and even for victims of domestic abuse. In fact, his job placed him over the state’s domestic abuse programs.

He was engaged to Ross and friends said he was happy again; he had his drinking under control.

But things didn’t go well from that point. His relationship with Ross deteriorated, the engagement was broken, and then in March a judge placed him under a domestic violence order for allegedly punching Ross four times in the face. He lost his job – resigning a week after saying he wouldn’t.

Friends grew concerned. People saw him around town in Glasgow where he lived in Country Club Estates, his house overlooking the golf course at the Glasgow Country Club. But the stories of drinking and partying re-emerged. And then came Friday.

“The Steve Nunn we knew is gone,” said Walter Baker, shaking his head. Baker, a Republican and former state senator and Supreme Court Justice, was first elected to the House of Representatives from Barren County in 1967 when Louie Nunn was elected governor.

In the warrant charging Nunn with murder, officers who found him in the cemetery said he’d told them he “was at the end of my rope,” though he never confessed to Ross’ killing, according to Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton, who was at the cemetery and rode with Nunn in the ambulance to the hospital.

“In his mind, he could see himself rising to the status of his parents,” said D. T. Froedge, owner of George J’s. “Then he lost two elections and got this job, and in his mind, she ruined it for him.”

Danny Gibson, a friend of Nunn’s who owns the Bailey-Gibson Buick Pontiac GMC dealership, tried to help Nunn. He said Nunn was depressed and blamed Ross.

“I told him, no, you’ve ruined your life,” Gibson said. “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.’ ”

Alexander said it might have been different.

“For a person with his education and having some moral fiber in his upbringing, how did he go 48 hours planning this? How?”

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis(at)cnhi.com.