A Christmas Murder at Pulaski County Park
- LCTI
- Dec 30, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 14, 2025
A dead-end road. A call in the dark. And a meeting that would end in blood.
Original Image (gun): © ef art | Adobe Stock | Image (orniment): ©Zamurovic Brothers | Adobe Stock | Image Design: jrgrigsby
Christmas night, 1962. While families across Pulaski County were settling in after the holiday feast, thirty-year-old Murrell Trimble stepped out into the cold, heading toward what he believed was a late-night meeting with an old acquaintance. A quiet roadside call had summoned him. He never came home.
By the next evening, his body was found slumped over the wheel of his car at the edge of Lake Cumberland in the Pulaski County Park. Beaten. Shot. Left to die.
The scene told a tale—one the killer wanted everyone to believe. Trimble’s body was staged with women’s undergarments. The suggestion was clear: an attempted assault turned deadly. But Sheriff Gilmore Phelps knew better. The wallet was gone. So was nearly $15,000 in cash Murrell was known to carry. This wasn’t rage—it was planned.
And the suspects? A husband. A wife. And a third woman, carrying a baby and more secrets than answers.
Roy Gill and his wife Barbara Jean had traveled from Ohio that day, picking up a friend—Miss Barbara Russell—along the way. It was Russell who made the call to Murrell. It was Gill who pulled the trigger. But what unfolded next would grip the town in a trial filled with contradictions, betrayal, and chilling testimony.
Gill was convicted. The women stood trial next. And when they walked free, a cloud of suspicion hung over the case for decades.
Was it a robbery gone wrong? Or was something darker at play—something premeditated, with layers of lies that only unraveled under the weight of courtroom confessions and quiet vendettas?
🎧 Step into the full story in the audiobook, A Christmas Murder at the Pulaski County Park?
Follow the trail of phone calls, roadside meetings, and a community caught between shock and speculation. Discover how one of Pulaski County’s most haunting murders unfolded beneath the glow of holiday lights.
Extra: Meet the Suspects
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