The prosecution used scene evidence to counter a defense built around methamphetamine and memory loss.
WILLIAMSON, W.Va. — Video evidence, police testimony and accounts of Timothy Kennedy’s behavior after arrest helped lead a Mingo County jury to convict him in the ambush killing of West Virginia State Police Sgt. Cory Maynard.
The jury found Kennedy guilty of first-degree murder with no mercy after a trial that tested two sharply different accounts of the same violent afternoon. Prosecutors said Kennedy knew what he was doing when he shot Maynard, attacked him and fled. The defense said Kennedy was high on methamphetamine, hallucinating and unable to form the intent required for first-degree murder.
The state’s case began with the first shooting on June 2, 2023. Benjamin Baldwin was shot in the Beech Creek area of Mingo County, a rural community near Matewan. The call brought Maynard and other troopers into the area. Baldwin survived and later testified that his injuries forced him through a long recovery. His testimony gave jurors the first link in the chain of events, placing Kennedy at the center of the shooting call that brought law enforcement to Beech Creek.
The next link was Maynard’s response. Prosecutors said Kennedy hid behind shrubs and ambushed the sergeant after he arrived. Maynard was shot three times. Testimony also described Kennedy standing over the wounded trooper and striking him with a gun. Trooper Jonathan Ziegler told jurors that Kennedy showed “no mercy” in the attack. The state used that testimony with video evidence to argue that the killing was deliberate, not the uncontrolled act of a man who did not know what was happening.
The body-camera evidence had been the subject of pretrial argument before jurors ever heard the case. The court allowed the video to be shown at trial after prosecutors said it would help show what happened from Maynard’s point of view. The defense challenged the weight of that evidence by focusing on Kennedy’s drug use and mental state. Jurors ultimately saw the video as part of a wider record that included witness accounts, physical evidence and testimony about the police response.
Kennedy’s own testimony placed the defense argument directly before the jury. He said methamphetamine use caused bizarre hallucinations and left him unable to remember key moments from the shootings. He told jurors he could not believe what he saw when he watched video of the attack. He said he wished he had never used drugs and said he was not the person shown on the recording. Defense lawyers argued those statements fit their claim that Kennedy was in a drug-induced psychotic episode. Prosecutors answered with testimony from people who saw Kennedy after the shooting. A medic, a trooper who transported him and a nurse who evaluated him testified that Kennedy appeared normal after he was caught. That testimony did not erase evidence that drugs were part of the case, but it gave prosecutors a way to argue that Kennedy’s behavior was controlled enough to support intent. The state also pointed to the alleged taking of Maynard’s service revolver and Kennedy’s flight from the scene.
The charges showed how prosecutors framed the full afternoon. Kennedy was accused of shooting Baldwin, killing Maynard, firing at another trooper, disarming Maynard and robbing him. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and disarming a law enforcement officer. Those verdicts meant jurors accepted the state’s view that the shootings and the flight were connected acts, not isolated pieces of confusion.
After the guilty verdicts, the jury returned to consider whether Kennedy should receive mercy on the murder conviction. It denied mercy. That decision placed Kennedy in line for life in prison without parole. The no-mercy finding also matched one of the prosecution’s themes, which focused on the claim that Kennedy showed none to Maynard as the sergeant lay wounded. The word carried both legal and emotional force inside the courtroom.
The case had drawn attention across West Virginia since the day Maynard was killed. Gov. Jim Justice ordered flags lowered in Maynard’s honor after the shooting. Police processions and public statements followed. Maynard was 37 and had served as a West Virginia State Police sergeant. He was a husband and father of two. His death was listed as a line-of-duty death because he was responding to the Beech Creek shooting call when he was fatally wounded.
The courtroom in Williamson was crowded when the verdict came back. State troopers gathered to hear the jury’s decision, and police leaders said afterward that the verdict brought justice while not removing the pain of Maynard’s death. Lonnie Faircloth, president of the West Virginia Troopers Association, said the loss reached Maynard’s family, his fellow troopers and the community. The public show of support reflected how the case had become both a criminal trial and a marker of grief for law enforcement.
The jury’s decision ended the fact-finding phase but left sentencing ahead. Kennedy’s convictions covered all counts filed in the case, and the no-mercy finding set the likely punishment for the murder count. The court was expected to sentence him in July 2026.
Author note: Last updated June 17, 2026.