At about 9:30 a.m. on March 3, 2017, Tamara Patrick had just gotten out of the shower when she heard a thud and a moan coming from her bedroom at her house in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Patrick found her daughter, 23-year-old Mary Kate Sanders, lying on the floor. Sanders had blood on her body, and Patrick could see a large gash on her hip.
When Paramedic Chris Williams and his partner arrived at the house, they found Sanders covered in dry blood. She was not actively bleeding but had several cuts and puncture wounds. The paramedics put Sanders in an ambulance.
En route to Franklin Regional Medical Center (FRMC), the paramedics asked Sanders who had harmed her. She replied, “the devil.” They asked her again, and this time, Sanders said, “Chase,” an apparent reference to her former boyfriend, Chase Dugas.
Sanders had received several emergency protective orders against Dugas during their relationship and had filed a domestic violence petition against him on December 5, 2016, after Dugas was charged with assaulting her the day before. A judge granted her petition on December 28, 2016. The charge against Dugas was dismissed on March 2, after Sanders failed to show up in court.
Also, on the morning of March 3, 24-year-old John “Brandon” Lamotte walked into Chelsea Marshall’s house, which was about five miles south of Sanders’s house. He had blood on his jacket. Although Marshall called the police, she would later say that Lamotte didn’t have a weapon and that she did not feel threatened. She said that Lamotte appeared to be in shock, told her “my bad,” and walked out of the house.
The police arrived and arrested Lamotte. After taking him to the hospital to receive stitches to a wound on his hand, the police brought him to the police station.
Initially, Lamotte was joined by his attorney, Willie Peale, but Peale had to leave for court. He told Lamotte not to make any statements until he returned. After Peale left, Lamotte waived his Miranda rights and gave a statement.
Lamotte said he and Sanders were next-door neighbors and close friends. They had met up that morning, as they frequently did, for a cigarette and conversation. Lamotte said that Sanders had been “up and down” because of her problems with Dugas. Lamotte said he was experiencing his own problems because he did not have a job. Lamotte said he and Sanders entered into a suicide pact that morning, and he tried to kill himself by slitting his wrist with a broken wine glass. He said he didn’t go through with it because he would miss his family.
This information was relayed to the officers present with Sanders and her family. Patrick believed Dugas was involved, and she rejected suggestions that Lamotte had attacked Sanders. “He is not that kind of guy,” she said, according to later testimony.
Detectives with the Frankfort Police Department interviewed Dugas. He said that he and three friends had gotten drunk on the night of March 2, eventually passing out at an apartment in Frankfort. Dugas said he woke up the next day at around noon. The detectives asked Dugas for the telephone numbers of his friends, and a few days later they called the young men, who appeared to confirm Dugas’s alibi.
Sanders had been taken into emergency surgery and then intubated after she arrived at the FRMC. A half-hour later, the hospital arranged for Sanders to be taken by helicopter to the University of Kentucky Medical Center (UKMC) in Lexington.
Sanders had a long history of mental-health problems, and in the months prior to March 3, Sanders had been hospitalized twice because of psychiatric issues. After attacking Patrick on New Year’s Eve, Sanders had been placed in a psychiatric unit in a hospital in Hardin County for two weeks in January. Five days after her release, she was admitted to a state mental hospital, where she remained for most of February.
Sanders’s older sister, Chelsea Ford, visited Sanders on the afternoon of March 5. Although Sanders was intubated, she was able to write a misspelled version of Lamotte’s name on a piece of paper.
Ford would later testify that she asked her sister a series of questions and was able to decipher her responses, enabling her to write next to Lamotte’s name: “He went to give her a hug then cut her throat.”
The detectives returned to the hospital a few hours later. Sanders could still not speak, so the officers asked her a series of questions. First, they asked whether she and Lamotte had been arguing. Sanders shook her head no. They asked her if she saw what he cut her with. Again, she shook her head no. Then, they asked her whether it was a knife. This time, Sanders nodded yes.
The police arrested Lamotte on March 7, 2017, charging him with assault in the first degree.
Lamotte’s trial in Franklin County Circuit Court began on January 28, 2019, presided over by Judge Phillip Shepherd. Peale represented him at trial.
Sanders testified that on the morning she received her injuries, she and Lamotte were smoking and talking together. They did not have a fight or argument. She said that when they finished their cigarettes, she went to hug Lamotte, and he stabbed her with what looked like a “pretty big” knife on the right side as they hugged. (The police did not recover a weapon.) She said that Lamotte beat her and dragged her.
The prosecutor asked her about any lingering issues regarding her health.
“It’s hard, it’s actually still to this day hard for me to eat food and drink.”
She also said, “My speech has improved quite a bit from back when the interviews were taken, but I had to have, um, a surgery on my vocal cords, another additional surgery.”
Patrick testified about finding her daughter and calling 911. She also testified that some of Sanders’s injuries might have been received while she was at the hospital. “During the surgery, they cut the nerve to half of [Sanders’s] tongue,” she said.
Ford testified that Sanders was alert when Ford arrived at UKMC on March 5, 2017. Because of the intubation, Sanders was unable to talk, but “she started signaling to us, kind of like sign language, and giving us clues.”
She said, “as a sibling to a family member, I can tell by the way she was motioning with her hands and her notes … I can put it together, and she nodded I was correct about that statement I wrote down on that paper.”
Williams, the paramedic, testified that Sanders had lost blood but “was not actively bleeding on our arrival.”
He read from his report which said Sanders had a large laceration on the right side of her neck, as well a second laceration below her chin. He said Sanders had multiple puncture wounds on her chest, another puncture wound on her abdomen, and a 4-inch laceration on her right hip.
In Kentucky, a conviction for first-degree assault requires the state to prove that the victim received “serious physical injury,” and the prosecutor asked Williams “How would you describe the nature of the injuries this lady had received? Were these serious?”
Williams said the injuries were “severe.”
Williams said he left a patient care form with the receiving physician when the paramedics and Sanders arrived at the FRMC at 9:57 a.m. It said that Sanders’s condition was unchanged from the time the EMTs began treating her and that her response was “improved.” Sanders had complained of difficulty breathing, but Williams and his partner listened to her lungs and found them to be clear.
The detectives who interviewed Dugas and his friends testified about that part of the investigation, including their efforts to confirm his alibi.
Dugas testified about his turbulent relationship with Sanders and said that Sanders had previously tried to kill herself. He said it was his opinion that her injuries were “self-inflicted.”
A serologist with the Kentucky State Police (KSP) testified that she collected blood samples from Lamotte’s car, his clothes, the wine glass, and the carport at Sanders’s house.
Lauren Hall, a DNA and blood analyst at the KSP laboratory, testified that genetic material found on the carport “matched” Sanders but did not “match” Lamotte. She said that the DNA found on a cutting from Lamotte’s sweater contained a mixture of two people, with Lamotte being the major contributor and Sanders also included as a contributor. She said that Lamotte was the sole source of genetic material found on his shorts, his jeans, the broken wine glass, and a door near Lamotte’s house.
After the state presented its case, Peale moved for a directed verdict, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to support the charge of first-degree assault. Judge Shepherd denied the motion.
Lamotte testified and denied harming Sanders. He said that they had discussed a suicide pact on the morning of March 3, and they each left with the intent of following through with that plan. Lamotte said he couldn’t go through with it. He testified that Sanders had harmed herself, but that she falsely said she had been attacked because she feared her mother would try to kick her out of the house and place her in a psychiatric hospital.
Lamotte’s father and pastor testified on his behalf. They said he was not a violent person, and he had been named “man of the year” at the church.
Just before resting his case, Peale introduced 12 pages of Sanders’s medical records that focused on the drugs she was prescribed at the hospital for anxiety and pain at the time she identified Lamotte as her assailant. The state was allowed to introduce nine additional pages of medical records, including evidence that Sanders was diagnosed with a collapsed lung two days after her mother called 911. Neither side presented testimony to explain these records.
On January 30, 2019, after less than two hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Lamotte of first-degree assault. Judge Shepherd later sentenced him to 11 years in prison.
Lamotte filed a direct appeal, r epresented by appellate attorney Roy Durham of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, arguing that Judge Shepherd erred in denying Peale’s request for a directed verdict.
Lamotte, represented by appellate attorney Roy Durham of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, filed a direct appeal, arguing that Judge Shepherd erred in denying Peale’s request for a directed verdict.
While that appeal was being considered, Lamotte’s legal team learned that Sanders had recanted her trial testimony. In April 2019, Sanders told Bradley Chambers that she had “the wrong guy” convicted and that Dugas was the man who assaulted her. She made a similar statement to Jeremy Baltz during the spring of 2019. Sanders knew both men from Alcoholics Anonymous.
Lamotte then paused his direct appeal and filed a separate motion for a new trial based on the recantations, now additionally represented by Whitney Wallace Allen of the Kentucky Innocence Project and Amy Robinson Staples of the Exoneration Project. That motion also asserted the police department conducted an inadequate investigation into Dugas’s alibi.
Judge Shepherd held an evidentiary hearing on August 10, 2020. Chambers and Baltz both testified about the statements Sanders made to them. In addition, Emily Redmon, a longtime friend of Sanders’s, testified that Sanders had also approached her in the spring of 2019 and said, “You know Chase did this, right?” Redmon said she had witnessed violent behavior between Sanders and Dugas but also testified that Sanders had a long history of mental-health issues.
Three police officers testified about their interviews with Dugas and the investigation into his alibi. They testified that they did not request DNA samples from Dugas nor apply for a search warrant for his car or home.
Detective Joshua Baker said he had taken photos of Dugas’s arms, and that Dugas told him he frequently received burns on his arms from the pizza ovens where he worked. The officer said the photos should have been in the case file but weren’t, apparently because they weren’t uploaded.
Sanders also testified at the hearing and said she didn’t remember recanting her trial testimony. She again said that it was Lamotte who attacked her. She also said that at the time of the recantations she was not taking her medication, was homeless, and was being pressured to recant. She also acknowledged that she posted on Facebook at the time of Lamotte’s sentencing that Dugas was the man who attacked her.
In a post-hearing brief, Lamotte’s attorneys said that there was strong and consistent evidence that Sanders truthfully recanted her testimony. It also said the state withheld exculpatory evidence—the photos of Dugas—and that this failure to disclose needed to be evaluated in the wider context of the Sanders’s recantation and the lackluster police investigation.
On October 29, 2020, Judge Shepherd denied Lamotte’s motion. He said that while he accepted that Chambers, Baltz, and Redmon had testified truthfully about what they heard, Sanders’s statements were “totally unreliable, and were the product of her mental health problems, drug abuse, and unstable emotional condition while homeless.”
Judge Shepherd also said the state’s failure to turn over the photographs didn’t require a new trial. There was no indication the state acted in bad faith when it failed to preserve this evidence. Based on Baker’s testimony at the evidentiary hearing, there was nothing to suggest that Dugas had cuts or other injuries suggesting an altercation.
Lamotte’s attorneys appealed Judge Shepherd’s ruling, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals considered that case as well as the earlier appeal that said the state had not met its evidentiary burden to convict Lamotte of first-degree assault.
On August 4, 2023, a three-judge panel ruled in a split vote that Judge Shepherd should have granted Lamotte’s motion for a directed verdict. The court said that Sanders was no longer bleeding by the time the EMTs arrived, and the state failed to establish a link between her collapsed lung and the purported attack.
“Even with the medical records here and construing everything in the medical record favorably for the Commonwealth, we fail to see proof of injuries creating a substantial risk of death,” the court wrote.
After the ruling, the state petitioned the appellate court for a rehearing, arguing that the court “overlooked several material facts that were in the record and evidence presented to the jury.” The appellate court granted the petition and also allowed the state to supplement its earlier appellate ruling.
On March 14, 2025, the same three-judge panel, now unanimously, re-affirmed its earlier ruling. The court agreed that it had misunderstood part of the existing record in its first ruling, but it laid much of the problem at the feet of the circuit court clerk and the assistant attorneys general who represented the state. The court also said that it shouldn’t have granted the state’s motion to supplement the record—which amounted to a “do-over—a second chance at better appellate advocacy.”
Still, the court said, this enhanced record only reinforced its earlier ruling.
According to Sanders’s medical records, she arrived at FRMC in stable condition, with no active bleeding, and her breathing normal. Her condition worsened during the next 35 minutes, before the hospital called UKMC to arrange a transfer by helicopter.
During Sanders’s brief time at FRMC, doctors performed an operation on her pharynx as they looked for internal bleeding. She also had an operation performed on the nerve at the bottom of her tongue.
The appellate court said the records didn’t make clear whether these procedures happened before or after the intubation, but “We do know, however, that these procedures had to be ‘repaired’ by UKMC medical staff.”
In addition, the court wrote, “The now-complete record shows no evidence of any problems with Kate’s lungs when she arrived at FRMC, but she was treated there as if both lungs had collapsed.” It also noted doctors referred to the collapsed lung she eventually suffered as a “chronic” injury.
“The Commonwealth presented evidence that Lamotte stabbed Kate, and also presented proof Kate suffered pneumothorax, hypoglossal nerve transection, and other injuries that can be called serious in the general, if not the legal and medical senses,” the court wrote. “However, the Commonwealth failed to present any evidence that the first event (Lamotte’s actions) caused the second event (serious physical injury). Instead, the Commonwealth relied on the logical fallacy … that because event A occurred before event B, A caused B. Such logic is never enough to establish causation.”
The state sought to appeal the ruling to the Kentucky Supreme Court. Lamotte was released from prison on August 1, 2025. On October 15, 2025, the Kentucky Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the Franklin Circuit Court was directed to enter an order granting judgment notwithstanding the verdict and dismissing Lamotte’s case.
Lamotte suffered greatly in prison, according to his attorneys. He struggled with his own mental-health issues as well as the isolation caused by the COVID pandemic.
“Today has been a long time coming for Brandon and his family and friends, who have fought tirelessly for the truth to be exposed,” Staples said. “The false charges levied against him and the many years of wrongful incarceration have had a severe impact on them all. Our hope is that with the appellate court’s rulings, Brandon and his family can begin rebuilding their lives.”
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 10-28-2025
Last Update Date: 10-28-2025
