Edgewood, Kentucky

Episode 63 / 29 March 2018 / 142 min / full

Team Murder Lunch

"James says they are going to Edgewood, Kentucky, the northern tip of Kentucky, in Kenton County, across the river from Cincinnati" about 0:05:56

The case: Murder of Stephen Craven (July 12, 2000). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2018

Population

8,769

Median age

about 43

Median home value

$196,500

Two-bedroom rent

$720 on average

Cost of living

98

Religious

46 or 49 percent

Property crime

▼ about 25% lower

Violent crime

▼ about half the rate

History, in brief

• Kenton County was established in 1840 from land given by Campbell County. about 0:14:58
• The county is named for Simon Kenton, a Kentucky pioneer, frontiersman and soldier who served in the Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812 and was a friend of Daniel Boone. about 0:15:05
• In 1778 Simon Kenton survived the gauntlet and ritual torture while being adopted into the Shawnee people. about 0:17:21
• Kenton married twice and had ten children. about 0:17:54
• In 1771, aged 16, Kenton fought over a girl, believed he had killed a man, fled to West Virginia and Ohio and lived as Simon Butler for about four years until he learned the man had survived, then went back to his own name. about 0:18:07
• The area is mainly German and Irish in origin and still rural, with Cincinnati across the river. about 0:19:43
• A ferry crossed the Ohio River until a suspension bridge, described as a prototype of the Brooklyn Bridge, was built; river land values quadrupled once it opened. about 0:20:41
• There was a lot of growth in the area in the 1970s, with rail, river trade and industrial parks outside Cincinnati. about 0:21:14
• About 80% of the US population lives within 800 miles of the area, which makes it a major site for distribution centres. about 0:22:00
• Local legend says a phantom police officer in a 1950s police car haunts Narrows Road and pulls over living drivers; he is said to be the spirit of a cop hit and killed by a car during a traffic stop in the 1950s, though some reports say it is only a legend. about 0:22:57
• Edgewood covers 4.2 square miles, all of it land, and was given land by Campbell County without river frontage; it is an hour and a quarter from Lexington and an hour and a half from Louisville. about 0:09:07

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