Background: Body camera footage of a police vehicle driving toward the 7700 block of Upper Somers Road in Camden, Ohio (WDTN/YouTube). Inset: Kenneth Brabant (Preble County Sheriff’s Office).
An apparent misunderstanding involving a motorcycle and a woman who thought she saw her ex-boyfriend ended in a man throwing a machete and killing someone in a quiet Ohio town this week, police say.
Kenneth Wayne Brabant, 59, was arrested on Monday on charges including murder, tampering with evidence, and assault. He is being detained in the Preble County Jail.
“All I can say is I’m sorry,” Brabant said in court on Wednesday, according to Dayton-based CBS affiliate WHIO.
“Do not, please do not get into the facts of your case,” the judge reportedly replied.
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On Sunday night, Leigha Huff, 41, was riding as a passenger on a motorcycle on Upper Somers Road in Camden, Ohio.
Around the same time, the Preble County Sheriff’s Office said they received a non-emergency call from a woman on the 7700 block of that road – complaining that her ex-boyfriend was driving a motorcycle up and down the roadway near her home trying to get her outside, Newport, Kentucky-based Fox affiliate WXIX reported.
The caller reportedly told the dispatcher her father, Brabant, was also outside.
It appears that at this time, Huff’s motorcycle came down the road, and Brabant allegedly threw a machete at the vehicle, striking Huff in the leg. Audio testimony shared by WXIX from the unnamed man driving the motorcycle sheds light on the harrowing moment.
“The guy was coming after us with that thing … I seen him coming out of the corner of my eye … and he doing this, and she was like, ‘oh my god,’ and then I sped up because I knew he had something,” the motorcycle driver told law enforcement. “And she goes, ‘oh my god, I’m hit, I’m hit.'”
The man reportedly drove to a friend’s home to obtain a phone to call for help, as the woman was bleeding heavily, but by the time emergency personnel arrived, she was dead.
As of Thursday, authorities had not yet discovered whether a separate motorcycle or ex-boyfriend was involved at all. They said neither Huff nor the man she was with knew Brabant or his daughter.
“We have not been able to corroborate the first report of a motorcycle. Don’t know whether that did or did not occur,” Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson told Dayton-based NBC affiliate WDTN. “Someone made a decision to go to the end of the driveway and confront whomever they thought that was, and it ended tragically for our victim.”
WDTN reported that police told them Brabant’s charge of tampering with evidence was because he initially hid the machete before later revealing to them where it was located.
Camden, Ohio, is located about 40 miles north of Cincinnati. It has a population of approximately 2,000 people.
The post ‘Oh my god, I’m hit’: Dad throws machete at motorcycle driver he thought was daughter’s ex-boyfriend, killing woman passenger, deputies say first appeared on Law & Crime.
