Investigators said the case began with a hospital report of a possible miscarriage and ended with an infant found dead near the couple’s Booneville residence.

BOONEVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky couple has been charged with reckless homicide after investigators said an infant was found dead over an embankment outside their home in Owsley County following a 911 call about a possible miscarriage.

The charges came after a yearlong investigation that began on Nov. 29, 2024, and ended with indictments returned by an Owsley County grand jury on Jan. 22, 2026. Deeann Bennett, 27, and Charles Bennett, 32, were arrested Feb. 9, 2026, according to Kentucky State Police. Both were charged with reckless homicide and concealing the birth of an infant. Deeann Bennett also was charged with tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. The case now moves into court with both defendants being held without bond.

State police said troopers at Post 7 in Richmond received a 911 call just before 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2024, about a woman who had been taken to a local hospital after reporting a possible miscarriage. Authorities later identified that woman as Deeann Bennett. While officers were at the hospital, police said, the couple told them the infant remained at their residence on Lewis Lane in Booneville. Troopers and detectives then went to the home, where they found an unresponsive infant over an embankment outside the residence. Owsley County Coroner Rob Morgan pronounced the infant dead at the scene. The body was taken to the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort for an autopsy, and Detective Anthony Bowling of Kentucky State Police led the investigation.

Even with the arrests, major parts of the case remain unknown in public records. Authorities have not released the infant’s cause of death or manner of death, and police have not publicly described the evidence that led the grand jury to return reckless homicide charges. Investigators also have not said whether the infant was born alive, how long the child had been outside, or what prosecutors believe happened between the hospital call and the discovery at the home. Those unanswered questions matter because the criminal counts go beyond concealment and accuse both parents of causing the child’s death through criminally reckless conduct. In Deeann Bennett’s case, the added counts of tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse suggest investigators believe evidence was altered or hidden after the infant died, but police have not publicly detailed those allegations.

The setting is a rural stretch of eastern Kentucky where Booneville, the seat of Owsley County, is better known for its small population than for major criminal cases. That made the investigation stand out locally from the start. It also unfolded slowly. The original police notice in November 2024 described the case only as a death investigation after an infant was found outside a residence. More than 14 months passed before authorities announced arrests. In that time, the case moved through the medical examiner’s process and a grand jury review before charges were filed. The long gap between the initial call and the indictments suggests investigators were building the case through forensic review and witness statements rather than making an immediate arrest at the scene. Still, the public record remains thin, and officials have not disclosed whether additional people were interviewed or whether more charges could follow.

The legal path is clearer than the factual one. Kentucky State Police said the Owsley County grand jury issued indictments Jan. 22, 2026, and both defendants were taken into custody on Feb. 9. They were booked into the Three Forks Regional Jail. Reports on the case said the Bennetts were being held without bond and were scheduled to appear for arraignment on the morning of March 2, 2026. At that stage, the court is expected to formally present the charges and set the next deadlines in the case. Prosecutors will eventually have to show what evidence supports reckless homicide and the concealment charge against both defendants, while Deeann Bennett also will have to answer the separate allegations tied to evidence handling and the infant’s body. No plea was reported in the public accounts released with the arrests.

The few voices now on the record are mostly official ones. State police framed the case as the result of a yearlong investigation and gave only a brief account of the timeline. Public affairs officer Justin Kearney said in the agency’s announcement that troopers and detectives “located an unresponsive infant over an embankment outside the home,” a line that became the most striking detail in the case. Beyond that, the record is notably spare. There have been no public statements from defense attorneys in the reports available, and no relatives or neighbors were quoted offering their own account of what happened at the Lewis Lane home. For now, the story is defined less by competing narratives than by a narrow sequence of official actions: a 911 call, a hospital interview, a grim discovery outside the house, an autopsy and, months later, indictments that turned an unexplained infant death into a homicide case.

As the case stands now, both Bennetts remain charged and jailed while Owsley County court proceedings begin. The next public milestone is the arraignment, where the charges will be read in open court and the case schedule should become clearer.

Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.