BRUCE SCHREINER
Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky teenager was killed while trying to protect his mother from her estranged boyfriend, and the woman was abducted and later found dead in Ohio during a multistate police search, a sheriff said Friday.

The suspect, Terry Froman, 41, of Brookport, Illinois, was taken into custody in the Cincinnati area and faced murder and kidnapping charges back in Kentucky, said Dewayne Redmon, the Graves County sheriff in western Kentucky.

Froman suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital for treatment, he said.

Froman’s vehicle was stopped along Interstate 75 by Ohio authorities, who found 34-year-old Kim Thomas dead inside, the sheriff said.

Earlier Friday, authorities found the body of her 17-year-old son, Michael E. Mohney, in the living room of his mother’s home in Mayfield, Kentucky, while checking on Thomas after she failed to report to work, Redmon said. There were signs of a struggle, he said.

“What we believe, apparently the son intervened and tried to protect his mother, and it cost him his life,” the sheriff said.

The teenager suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and an autopsy was scheduled, said Graves County Coroner Phillip McClain.

Mohney attended Mayfield High School. Students formed prayer circles after learning of the tragedy, and school counselors and youth ministers were available to help students deal with their grief, said school district spokeswoman Kim Hamby.

“He’s as good as good gets,” said Don Hubbard, the high school’s principal.

Senior football players and cheerleaders decided to go ahead and play the school’s football game Friday night, Hamby said. Afterward, a candlelight vigil was planned at Mohney’s parking spot at the school.

Kentucky authorities started tracking Froman when video showed a bloodied woman trying to flee from a vehicle at a convenience store in Paducah in western Kentucky, Redmon said. A man caught her, put her back in the vehicle and fled, he said.

The vehicle, a white 2004 GMC Yokon, matched the description of Froman’s vehicle, authorities said. Investigators also learned that Thomas was Froman’s ex-girlfriend and suspected she might have been the woman in the video at the convenience store.

Authorities received another call that Froman was covered in blood when he went to his mother’s house in Paducah, authorities said.

That prompted the multistate police search that included the vehicle’s license plate and descriptions of the man and woman inside, Redmon said.

Ohio authorities spotted the vehicle Friday afternoon and stopped it in the Middletown-Monroe area north of Cincinnati.

Investigators were trying to determine where Thomas was killed, Redmon said.

Redmon said investigators also were trying to determine a possible motive. The sheriff said he didn’t know how long Thomas and Froman had dated and when their relationship ended. There was no sign of forced entry into the house, he said.

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