Kentucky Supreme Court Rejects Brice Rhodes Appeal, Upholding Louisville Triple-Murder Convictions and Life-Without-Parole Sentence

High court affirms 2024 Jefferson County verdicts tied to 2016 killings

The Kentucky Supreme Court on Feb. 19, 2026, affirmed the convictions and sentence of Brice Rhodes, a Louisville man found guilty in Jefferson Circuit Court of three murders, tampering with physical evidence, and two counts of abuse of a corpse. The court’s ruling leaves intact Rhodes’ punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The case stems from the 2016 killing of Christopher Jones and the later deaths of two teenage brothers, Maurice Gordon and Larry Ordway, whose bodies were discovered severely burned behind an abandoned house on Riverpark Drive. The Supreme Court’s opinion recounts that Jones was shot on May 4, 2016, on South 41st Street. Gordon and Ordway were found on May 22, 2016.

How the court described the evidence presented at trial

In its summary of the trial record, the court said investigators connected the three deaths through witness accounts and forensic testing. The opinion describes how luminol testing and subsequent analysis identified DNA matching Ordway in carpet samples taken from Rhodes’ residence, and how additional testing of cuttings from bedding recovered from a dumpster-fire scene showed a DNA profile matching Gordon.

The court noted that co-defendants Anjuan D. Carter and Jacorey Taylor testified against Rhodes at the eight-day jury trial held in December 2023. A fourth co-defendant, Tieren Coleman, did not testify. The opinion also states that Carter, Taylor, and Coleman pleaded guilty in connection with the case.

Key appellate issues and the Supreme Court’s conclusions

The Supreme Court said Rhodes raised five main claims on appeal and that each was preserved for review. The court ultimately found no reversible error and affirmed the judgment.

• Counsel and self-representation: The court rejected arguments that Rhodes was denied conflict-free counsel and concluded the record did not require a self-representation hearing because Rhodes did not unequivocally invoke the right to represent himself.

• Jury instructions: The court upheld the trial court’s refusal to instruct the jury on first-degree manslaughter or facilitation to commit murder, finding those lesser-offense instructions unwarranted under the evidence described in the record.

• Mitigation evidence: The court found no error in limiting access to a relative’s mental-health records, concluding the requested records were cumulative and of limited additional probative value in the penalty phase.

• Venue: While acknowledging substantial pretrial publicity, the court concluded the passage of time between the crimes and the 2023 trial, along with the lack of evidence of renewed publicity close to trial, supported denying a change of venue.

The ruling was issued as a memorandum opinion marked “not to be published,” and it affirmed the Jefferson Circuit Court judgment in full.

Rhodes was sentenced after the jury returned guilty verdicts on three counts of murder, tampering with physical evidence, and two abuse-of-a-corpse counts. The Supreme Court decision ends the direct appeal addressed in the Feb. 19, 2026, ruling and keeps the life-without-parole sentence in place.