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Shelby County jury recommends life in prison for Shannon Gilday

Shelby Circuit Court in Shelbyville.
Curtis Tate
/
WEKU
Shelby Circuit Court in Shelbyville.

A Shelby County jury has recommended life in prison for Shannon Gilday.

The jury convicted the 27-year-old Gilday last week of murder, attempted murder, burglary and criminal mischief. They found him guilty but mentally ill in the 2022 invasion of the Madison County home of former state Rep. Wesley Morgan.

Gilday shot and killed Morgan’s daughter, 32-year-old Jordan Morgan, in her bed. Gilday then exchanged gunfire with Wesley Morgan before he fled. Police later caught him.

The high-profile case was moved from Madison County to Shelby County because of the amount of pre-trial publicity.

The sentence of life in prison was one of the better outcomes Gilday’s defense team could have sought. He was eligible for the death penalty, and Jordan Morgan’s family supported it.

Curtis Tate is a reporter at WEKU. He spent four years at West Virginia Public Broadcasting and before that, 18 years as a reporter and copy editor for Gannett, Dow Jones and McClatchy. He has covered energy and the environment, transportation, travel, Congress and state government. He has won awards from the National Press Foundation and the New Jersey Press Association. Curtis is a Kentucky native and a graduate of the University of Kentucky.
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