Prosecutor furious after GOP governor pardons man convicted of beheading woman and stuffing her in a toxic waste barrel
Delmar Partin delivered eight blows to the head of Betty Carnes with a metal pipe, killing the mother of three. He then severed her head, put her torso in a barrel, and placed her head on her own lap. This Monday, outgoing Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned Partin and commuted his sentence after he was convicted of killing her at the factory where they both worked in Barbourville in 1994.ccording to Bevin, potential DNA evidence in Partin’s case had not been tested, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
“Given the inability or unwillingness of the state to use existing DNA evidence to either affirm or disprove this conviction, I hearby pardon Mr. Partin for this crime and encourage the state to make every effort to bring final justice to the victim and her family,” Bevin wrote.But according to the prosecutor in the case, Tom Handy, Bevin’s move shows the “arrogance of one who has a God-like image of himself” and a “lack of concern for anybody else.”