LEXINGTON, Ky. (Scripps News Lexington) — The status of the case against a woman in Lexington is still being worked out more than six years after she allegedly killed her husband and set their house on fire.
Carol Ann Hignite appears in court Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, in Lexington, Kentucky. Hignite is accused of attacking her husband and leaving him for dead in Sept. 2017. (Court TV)
Carol Ann Hignite appeared in court Friday morning, hoping for a new public defender to represent her in her pending retrial.
Over a year ago, just before Christmas 2022, Hignite stood in the same courtroom.
The jury at the time was unable to agree on whether she murdered her 76-year-old husband, Leon Duane Hignite, or not.
Prosecutors argued she used a hammer to assault him, not calling an ambulance for help for days, and then set her home on fire.
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The victim’s family also requested the judge set a speedy trial.
In a letter to Judge Diane Minnifield, Leon’s daughter-in-law wrote about her husband’s health changing more and more and the straining emotional and financial situation the case has caused.
In her letter, Hignite called her current public defender unconcerned and inconsistent.
Both sides will continue to wait for answers to their request because there was no ruling in the case on Friday.
Judge Minnifield ordered everyone back to court in mid-January for her decision.
Hignite, 75 years old now, faces decades in prison if she’s found guilty on all counts of murder, knowingly neglecting an elderly person, and third-degree arson.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Lexington, an E.W. Scripps Company.
