A northern Kentucky sheriff has announced the stabbing deaths of a mother and her two children in January was a murder-suicide.
On Sunday night, January 9, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office responded to an apartment complex in the Overland Ridge area of Walton, a small town of about 3,600 people about seven miles south of Florence.
Deputies found 31-year-old Monique S. Pena and her two children, 12-year-old Nikki R. Pena and three-year-old Katie Farrell-Pena, deceased from multiple stab wounds.
Pena’s longtime boyfriend, 36-year-old Matthew Farrell, was also found with stab wounds to his torso and neck. He was airlifted to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treatment. He has since been released.
Farrell, according to police, said he was asleep when Monique Pena began to stab him. He fled the apartment believing he was the only target of the attack.
Evidence collected by investigators as well as crime scene evidence corroborated Farrell’s account, according to police. Additionally, Pena’s family told authorities that she had been experiencing “unusual and extreme paranoia” in the days preceding the stabbings.
Boone County Sheriff Michael Helmig said that witness and family statements, and the evidence, resulted in the murder-suicide finding.
(Photo of Monique Pena, Nikki Pena and Katie Farrell-Pena courtesy of Cincinnati Fox19.com)
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
