A Tennessee man with a lengthy criminal history was ordered held without bail Tuesday after being charged in the fatal shooting of a Kentucky state trooper, officials said.
Emonnie Dion Branch was arrested and charged in Louisville on Monday night in the killing of Trooper Hayden Phillips, who was shot when he pulled a vehicle over on Interstate 65 in Warren County, Col. Phillip Burnett Jr., commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, said during a news
conference.
Branch, 51, of Portland, Tennessee, fled in his vehicle and officers arrested him in Jefferson County, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) from the scene of the shooting, police said.
Authorities booked Branch into the Warren County Detention Center in Bowling Green early Tuesday.
Branch was charged with murder of a first responder. If convicted he could face the death penalty or life imprisonment. During an arraignment hearing Tuesday, a judge denied him bail.
A preliminary hearing to discuss the extradition process was scheduled for Friday.
Prosecutors said Branch is a repeat offender, and that he is named on an arrest warrant issued in Sumner County, Tennessee, in August for violating the terms of his probation. He was sentenced to probation last year after being convicted of fraud and impersonation. Authorities have not described the probation violation.
Branch wore an orange jail uniform and sat in a wheelchair in the courtroom packed with members of Phillips’ family and rows of law enforcement officers.
A public defender appointed for Branch attended the arraignment. A woman who answered the phone at the public defender’s office in Frankfort said no one from the office would comment on the case.
Trooper Katan Parker, a state police spokesperson in Bowling Green, said Tuesday that authorities are not sure why Phillips pulled Branch over. At a news conference Monday, Kyle Bumgarner, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, described it as a “routine traffic stop” and said officials responded within minutes of the shooting.
“It is the most heinous crime that can be committed in our commonwealth,” Bumgarner said. “One of our own was gunned down and murdered on the side of the road.”
Phillips, who would have turned 29 on Wednesday, had been with the agency for three years and was based in Bowling Green in south-central Kentucky. He was a husband and father of three.
Dozens of law enforcement vehicles escorted his body from the medical examiner’s office in Louisville, where an autopsy was performed, to a funeral home in his hometown of Glasgow on Tuesday. Funeral arrangements were pending.
First responders and residents of Russell County attended a vigil for Phillips on Monday night in Russell Springs, where he had once served as a firefighter, emergency medical technician and a police officer.
In a statement, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called Phillips “a hero who dedicated himself to protecting our commonwealth.”
