2. A2 THURSDAY, JULY 16, 2015 FROMTHE FRONT PAGE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER | KENTUCKY.COM
Big Sandy Community and Technical Col-
lege and WSIP-98.9 FM in Johnson County
will host a six-hour radiothon to raise money
for flood victims, according to a news release
from college relations director Joshua Ball.
Operation Helping Hands Radiothon will
be noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, and all proceeds
will go to the Johnson County Long-Term
Recovery Group, which aids residents after
disasters such as the flooding this week killed
at least three people, and damaged or de-
stroyed about 500 homes in the Flatgap area.
“The effects of this flood will linger for
weeks, months and even years for some,”
said Bobby McCool, chief institutional of-
ficer and chairman of the Johnson County
Long-Term Recovery Group. “It is critical
that we have the resources in place to help
the people affected by this disaster rebuild
and pick up the pieces.”
The radiothon will be powered by Ap-
palachian Wireless and sponsored by the
Southeast Kentucky Chamber of Commerce,
Paintsville-Johnson County Chamber of Com-
merce and Floyd County Chamber of Com-
merce.
For more information, call Ball at (606)
889-4703 or send an email jball0079@
kctcs.edu.
CHEYENE MILLER, cmiller@herald-leader.com
Saturday radiothon
to raise money for
Johnson flood relief
Five people were reported missing. Among
them is Scott Johnson, 34, who was swept
away Monday while trying to save Penning-
ton, who is his grandmother.
Rescue teams are slogging through knee-
deep mud, door-to-door, across the rugged
Appalachian terrain, painting orange “X”s on
each structure they search. Desperate fami-
lies roamed the banks of the swollen creek,
looking for their lost loved ones.
Kevin Johnson last saw his son Scott
wading through rushing floodwater with his
grandmother on his back.
Scott Johnson had already guided his fa-
ther, uncle and sister from the raging flood
that inundated their cluster of trailers. He
turned back one last time to save his grand-
mother, called Nana, and a 13-year-old family
friend.
“We told him, ‘You can’t make it,’” his fa-
ther recalled. “He said, ‘I’m going to get her
out of that trailer.”
Standing in a cemetery on a hill overlook-
ing the creek that had swallowed his son,
Kevin Johnson was so overcome with grief
he sometimes struggled to speak. He had
watched his son push the boy to safety in the
branches of a catalpa tree and hoist his Nana
onto his back, only to be swept away.
“Scott wouldn’t turn her loose, that’s why
he died,” said Veronica Marcum, Scott John-
son’s sister.
Rescue crews battled swarming mosqui-
toes, oppressive humidity and mud so thick
it sucked off shoes. Utility crews lined the
roads, trying to restore power to thousands
still without it. A convoy of National Guard
vehicles and heavy equipment rolled through
the hardest-hit areas.
Randall Mulkey, chief of Allen Volunteer
Fire Department in nearby Floyd County,
came to help with the search. He said he’s
seen homes splintered into rubble, others
split in half and cars strewn in places he nev-
er could have imagined. Tromping through
the mud is exhausting, he said, and it’s devas-
tating to see people’s belongings — clothes,
toys, photographs — scattered everywhere,
some piled 10 feet high.
As the water receded, a crew found a car
upside down and partially submerged in the
creek. They called for the jaws of life to tear
it open and see if anyone had perished in-
side.
But the car’s owner arrived just in time,
and told the crew it had floated there, unoc-
cupied, from her home a mile away.
“Thanks for not being in it,” said Flat-
woods Police Officer Justin Stevens. “We re-
ally didn’t want to see that.”
Seven cadaver dogs are aiding in the
search, which stretches more than 8 miles
from the town of Flatgap south to Staffords-
ville — an area with 500 homes and 1,200
residents about 120 miles east of Lexington.
Authorities estimate more than 150 homes
were destroyed.
Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of
emergency, giving local officials immediate
access to state resources to assist in recovery
efforts. Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen toured the de-
struction Wednesday.
Families returned to the ruins of their
homes to try to save what little they could.
Church groups and others passed out sand-
wiches and water, and neighbors banded to-
gether to clear heavy debris.
Johnson County Deputy Sheriff Terry
Tussey spotted a Chihuahua, alone and trem-
bling, pacing a pile of debris on the other
side of a creek.
“She was dancing like she wanted to
come across the creek but couldn’t do it,”
he recalled. He trudged through the muck to
find a safe crossing. Then he coaxed the little
dog to him and cradled it back to his car. He
drove around the afternoon with the tan dog
in his lap, looking for its owner.
A shelter was opened at the Paintsville
recreation center, though many displaced res-
idents turned to families and friends. Many
who lost everything said they felt lucky to be
alive.
Robin Cisco sifted through the rem-
nants of her daughter’s trailer, digging her
grandson’s clothes and toys from the mud
and rubble. The family barely got away:
Her daughter ran from the trailer with her
18-month-old son as the storm hit and water
started rising.
“They got out and they’re OK, that’s all
we were worried about,” Cisco said. “All this
other stuff can be replaced.”
Associated Press writers Claire Galofaro and
Rebecca Reynolds Yonker in Louisville contributed
to this report.
From Page A1
FLOODS
million to the state’s addiction treatment sys-
tem.
Urban areas have shown the biggest jumps
in overdose deaths, thanks to heroin, but
Floyd and Pike counties in Eastern Kentucky
have the highest rates of overdose deaths per
100,000 people, at 55.1 and 50.8, respective-
ly. Prescription drug abuse has been a ram-
pant problem in the region for more than a
decade.
“The report has become more inclusive
of urban areas than it was because heroin is
more pronounced in Northern Kentucky, Lex-
ington and Louisville,” Ingram said. “There’s
been some improvement in certain areas, but
we still have a lot of work to do.”
The report’s statistics were compiled from
the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office, the
Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research
Center and the Kentucky Office of Vital Sta-
tistics. The report was first mandated by the
General Assembly in 2012.
Other findings in the report include:
■ Deaths from drugs statewide made up
almost 60 percent of accidental deaths state-
wide, more than car accidents, fire, drown-
ing or gunshot wounds.
■ Jefferson County had the most over-
dose deaths with 204, up 12 from 2013. The
biggest increases were in Fayette, Boone,
Campbell and Madison counties. The larg-
est decrease occurred in Bell County, which
had 15 fewer deaths in 2014 than the year
before.
■ The five counties with the most
heroin deaths were Jefferson, 105; Fay-
ette, 35; Kenton, 26; Campbell, 15; and
Boone, 14.
Tracey Corey, Kentucky’s chief med-
ical examiner, cautioned that some
cases identifying morphine as the
cause of death might also be due to
heroin, because morphine is the ma-
jor substance detected in blood after
a heroin injection. Nationally, heroin
overdose deaths went up sharply in
2012 and 2013, according to the Na-
tional Institutes of Health.
“What we can definitely say is
that we need to continue to devote
significant resources and energy to
help curb the tragic and untimely
deaths of so many Kentuckians,”
Corey said.
The bill also permits local juris-
dictions to allow needle exchanges,
which have been approved in Louis-
ville and Lexington.
Last fall, the Lexington Urban Coun-
ty Council approved funding for a new
Substance Abuse and Violence Interven-
tion office, which is headed by Amy Baker.
Baker said she wasn’t surprised by the
Fayette County numbers, but “it makes me
sad that we’re still losing people to drug
overdoses.”
Her office coordinates with local ac-
tivists, experts and recovery experts
to identify more resources to prevent
drug addiction and help people over-
come it. One example is the planned
needle exchange operated by the
Fayette County Health Department.
The exchange is expected to start
by Labor Day weekend.
“When people come in and say,
‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’
we need to have information and
treatment resources available,” she
said.
Also, Baker said, Lexington
will compete for state money to
improve programs that help addict-
ed inmates in the Fayette County
detention center.
“Now, people are paying atten-
tion,” Baker said. “There is much to
do, but the momentum is moving in
the right direction.”
Linda Blackford: (859) 231-1359. Twitter: @
lbblackford.
From Page A1
OVERDOSES
A bucket truck, its rear tires gone, rammed into a Kentucky State Police cruiser on West Main Street on July 3 after a police chase in two
counties. Vanessa Napier was charged with stealing the truck, which led to the discovery of her boyfriend’s body and a murder charge.
CHARLES BERTRAM | cbertram@herald-leader.com
Napier aren’t talking, exten-
sive court and other records
reveal turmoil-filled lives in
the years before the murder.
About the time a 17-year-
old Napier began her long
court history with an evic-
tion from her Lexington
apartment in 1999, Sharp’s
medical license was suspend-
ed in California and Ken-
tucky, the beginning of a pe-
riod that ultimately included
domestic-violence cases and
increasingly erratic behavior
and threats of violence. He
last lost his license to prac-
tice in 2012. An injury that
left Sharp with limited use of
his arm might have been the
source of his troubles.
For Napier, Fayette Coun-
ty jail is familiar; she has
been booked 19 times in the
past 10 years, according to
jail records.
She had been out of jail
only about a week before she
was charged July 5 in Sharp’s
death, said Capt. Darin Kelly,
jail spokesman. Napier had
served a 60-day sentence for
receiving stolen property, re-
sisting arrest, possession of
marijuana and giving a false
name, according to court re-
cords.
Her misdemeanor record
began in 2005 with a theft
charge; successive charges
included assault, burglary,
shoplifting, public intoxica-
tion, multiple possessions
of marijuana, and promot-
ing contraband, according to
court records.
Napier has had 13 mis-
demeanor convictions, but
none for felonies, according
to court records. All the felo-
ny charges were amended or
dismissed.
It is unclear how Napier’s
path crossed with Sharp’s,
but police reports indicated
he was Napier’s boyfriend.
Sharp’s family say the two
were not in a steady relation-
ship.
Sharp, who grew up in
Lexington, graduated from
medical school in 1988, UK
spokeswoman Kathy Johnson
said. He was a general sur-
geon and practiced in Cali-
fornia, according to court
records.
At some point, Sharp’s left
arm was injured, and he had
to undergo several surger-
ies to repair a major nerve,
according to a letter Sharp
wrote to Fayette District
Judge Joseph T. Bouvier in
the midst of a criminal case
filed against him for failure
to pay child support.
The surgeries were ex-
tremely painful, said Sharp’s
former attorney, Shelby
Kinkead. The surgeries were
not successful; Sharp did
not have full use of the arm,
Kinkead said. The last of the
operations was in 2009, ac-
cording to Sharp’s letter.
The letter and other
court documents show that
after his injury, Sharp’s life
spiraled out of control. His
medical license was suspend-
ed in 2000 because he had
failed to complete continuing
medical education require-
ments, according to court
records. While the exact date
of Sharp’s injury was not in
court records, his letter im-
plies the injury occurred be-
fore the suspension.
In 2009, Sharp spent time
at an alcohol and drug treat-
ment facility in California
called Casa Palmera, and
Sharp mentioned in his let-
ter spending two months at
Casa Palmera for pain man-
agement. Casa Palmera re-
fused to comment whether
those two instances involved
the same stay. While at Casa
Palmera in 2009, it was con-
cluded that Sharp was not
able to practice medicine
safely, according to court re-
cords.
Nonetheless, in May 2011,
Sharp’s medical license was
reinstated in Kentucky be-
cause he completed the nec-
essary education. But Sharp
lost the license within a year.
In 2011, Sharp’s father
and Sharp’s ex-wife sought
protective orders in Lexing-
ton to keep him from con-
tacting them. Both cases
talk of Sharp wanting to kill
people. Sharp’s father, Brown
Sharp, also requested that
John Sharp surrender all fire-
arms and his concealed-carry
license. The judge agreed, ac-
cording to records.
“John has said he wants
to shoot someone to see how
it feels,” according to docu-
ments filed by his father.
Brown Sharp owns the
farm on Athens-Walnut Hill
Road where John Sharp’s
body was found. The young-
er Sharp might have been liv-
ing there.
In August 2011, John
Sharp was admitted invol-
untarily to Eastern State
Hospital because of concerns
of possible delusions and
threats of violence, according
to court records.
“He was released after it
was determined that he ex-
hibited no signs of delusional
behavior and had no suicidal
or homicidal plans or inten-
tions,” according to records.
In her October 2011 case
over child support, Sharp’s
ex-wife, Cynthia Adams, said
he “expressed to me that he
wanted to kill someone and
watch them die to see how it
would feel.” Sharp also said
he would kill any officials
who would come to collect
child support, according to
Adams’ case.
Adams said Sharp made no
direct threats to her or their
daughter, Lelaina Sharp.
Kinkead was Sharp’s law-
yer for the child-support case.
Sharp failed to appear for
some court proceedings and
spent two months in jail.
When he was released, the
obviously bright Sharp had a
very sad life, Kinkead said.
In May 2012, Sharp’s
medical license was restrict-
ed indefinitely over allega-
tions he had been phoning in
prescriptions for people who
were not his patients from
2008 to 2011.
For the licensing board,
Sharp was evaluated by three
doctors who diagnosed ma-
jor depression, anxiety, pain
disorder, dementia, and de-
pendence on opioids and
Klonopin, according to re-
cords.
One evaluator said, “Dr.
Sharp has significant cogni-
tive deterioration from what
can be reasonably assumed
to be his former level of func-
tioning. … His memory seems
to be genuinely impaired.”
It appears that before
his death, Sharp’s mental
health did not improve. In
a case from April, Sharp’s
now-grown daughter said he
claimed to have “visions” of
where she was and then went
to that area to see her. “I am
fearful he is stalking me and
is dangerous,” she said. “He
recently has threatened oth-
ers with knives and guns.”
Neither police nor fam-
ily members of Sharp and
Napier have given any indica-
tion that Sharp ever threat-
ened Napier.
Reporter Justin Madden
contributed to this report.
Hannah Scheller: (859) 231-1330.
Twitter: @HannahScheller.
From Page A1
STABBING
