Cops & Courts

Crime Stoppers is seeking the public’s help in locating the person suspected to responsible for setting two fires at two different businesses late last month.

On May 21, the Shelbyville Fire Department responded to a trash-can fire in front of Goody’s Family Clothing in Village Plaza. The call came in at 1 p.m.

A few minutes after firefighters extinguished the fire, they received another call that the Dumpster behind Save-A-Lot – adjacent to Goody’s – was on fire.

Here’s the picture on crime in Shelby County during 2010: Overall calls and arrests were down, but in violent crimes, there was an increase.

That’s what the statistics reported by the three principle police agencies that serve Shelby County reveal.

Rapes more than doubled – 24 were reported by the Kentucky State Police and the Shelbyville Police Department – and there were 32 robberies, more than twice those reported in 2009.

WADDY – A family watched helplessly Tuesday morning as firefighters worked to extinguish a fire that heavily damaged their home.

Tim and Stacy Warford stood nearby with their two children as crews from the Waddy and East 60 fire departments knocked down a blaze that started about 7:30 that morning.

Although a pet perished in the blaze, no one was injured, a blessing for a family that lost a young niece in a fire last year, when 6-year-old Elizabeth Brown died at her home just after Christmas.

Kentucky State Police have added 62 new charges in their ongoing investigation into illegal business practices at Ethington Motors, bringing to 169 the total filed in an investigation that they say may bring more.

In Shelbyville District Court on Thursday afternoon, KSP Trooper Hunter Martin, who is in charge of the investigation into the dealership, added those charges to the existing 107 filed last month against owners Donnie Ethington, 70, of Shelbyville and William T. Ledford, 84, of Somerset.