Kentucky Downs Employee Sentenced 40 Years For Murder

In Franklin, Kentucky, a cafe manager at Kentucky Downs has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s ex-husband. 

However, it wasn’t him that committed that murder. 

This comes after a man was found guilty of a murder at Circus Circus in Las Vegas. 

Details of the Crime

The man sentenced to 40 years in prison is 40-year-old Freddy Gonzalez.

In this crime, he had convicted felon Xavier Posey, an employee at Corner Cafe at Kentucky Downs in the Mint Gaming Hall, to kill Brian Russell, the ex-husband of Miranda Russell. 

Gonzalez was obsessed with Miranda. 

Gonzalez paid Posey $2,000, a pickup truck, and gave him a raise. Posey was sentenced to 35 years in prison. 

The police were called to Brian’s home on Dec.30, 2020. He was found alive, narrowly with three gunshot wounds, and pronounced dead at the hospital. 

The Relationship Dynamics

The Russell's were married for 16 years and were childhood sweethearts. In 2018, they separated and divorced, but they did date after that and co-parented their two children. 

In Feb. 2020, Miranda dated Gonzalez for eight months before breaking up with him to date her ex-husband. According to prosecutors, Gonzalez “pined” over her. 

After breaking up, he stalked Miranda for the next two weeks and arranged Brian’s murder. 

“He deluged her with text messages, surreptitiously placed a digital tracking device on her car, surveilled her, and staged ‘random’ encounters with her,” prosecutors said.

Brian told co-workers Gonzalez threatened him at one time with a gun. This led police to make him the prime suspect, but he denied involvement in the murder. 

The Police Found the Tracking Device

After the crime, police found the tracking device on Miranda’s car and turned it off. Minutes later, Gonzalez called investigators, per court documents. 

He admitted to installing the device but said it was only to determine if Miranda was faithful during their relationship. 

“I did not know that the ex-husband was going to be using her car at any point when I put the device into her car,” Gonzalez added.

Police arrested Gonzalez on first-degree stalking. They took his phone, got a search warrant, and discovered texts between him and Posey. 

These texts incriminated them both, and the phrase “cleaning the kitchen” was code for the crime. 

Posey was arrested on Jan. 9, 2021, and there, they found Gonzalez’s hand-drawn map of the victim’s house.