Cousins exonerated in Knox Co. murder file suit alleging police framed them

Two cousins exonerated in a southern Kentucky murder case announced Wednesday they filed a lawsuit against the police officers who once accused them.

Amanda Hoskins and Jonathan Taylor once faced charges in connection to the murder of Katherine Mills in Knox County in 2010.

Hoskins and Taylor spent a combined eight years behind bars before they were freed.

Last year prosecutors dropped all charges against them and another man, William Lester, who is not part of the lawsuit.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Taylor.

"Now being free, I just want to get my name back," Hoskins said Wednesday at a news conference, flanked by her mother and children she missed seeing while in jail. "It's just been embarrassing, humiliating."

"It's still embarrassing for my kids. They come home (from school) and one of the parents has pulled me up on Jailtracker. We still have to live with that every day."

Hoskins said she stayed in seven different jails awaiting trial.

The suit alleges police fabricated statements, coerced witnesses, destroyed evidence and falsified medical records to frame Taylor and Hoskins.

"It was a murder that still remains unsolved even though police officers from three different police departments know who committed it," said attorney Elliot Slosar, who is representing Hoskins and Taylor. "We believe - and we have evidence that supports this belief - that they committed similar misconduct in other cases."

The lawsuit names individual officers from Kentucky State Police, Knox County Sheriff's Office and Barbourville Police as defendants.

A KSP spokesman told WKYT the agency could not comment on pending litigation.

WKYT was unable to get comments on the suit from the Knox County Sheriff's Office or Barbourville Police.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in the case last year because two of the witnesses died, one witness was injuried in a serious car crash and another witness refused to cooperate, KSP Post 10 spokesman Shane Jacobs said.

The case is still active and ongoing, Jacobs said.

The KSP detective who headed up the original investigation is no longer on the case, Jacobs said.

"Maybe it will give the person before me who might have been innocent...maybe that will open up their case," Hoskins said of her reason for filing the suit. "And maybe it will save the next one after me from going through the same thing that me and my family went through."