Background: The Rowan County Coroner”s Office investigates two deaths in Morehead, Kentucky, in September 2025 (Rowan County Coroner’s Office). Inset left: Kayla Danielle Blake (Malone Funeral Home). Inset middle: Kennedi Grace McWhorter (Malone Funeral Home). Inset right: Joshua Cottrell (McCracken County Jail).
A man in Kentucky is set to spend the rest of his life behind bars for fatally stabbing a mother and daughter inside their home.
Joshua Cottrell, 44, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in the deaths of 37-year-old Kayla Danielle Blake and 13-year-old Kennedi Grace McWhorter. He also pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence, according to court records obtained by Law&Crime.
On Sept. 19, 2025, a co-worker of Blake’s went to her home on South Spring Street in Morehead, Kentucky, to check on her because Blake had not come in to work, the Rowan County Coroner’s Office said at the time. Authorities were called to the scene, and first responders arrived to find “two obvious deceased individuals.”
Blake and her daughter Kennedi had been killed. Blake was stabbed in the head in a bedroom and Kennedi’s throat was cut across the hall, McClatchy News reported.
Blake also died due to blunt force trauma, court records state.
Investigators reportedly spoke with neighbors and learned that Cottrell was at the mother and daughter’s home the previous day. Law enforcement officers searched for him, but he wasn’t in the Morehead area.
Instead, he was in a hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, more than 300 miles west. When authorities found him, he allegedly had blood on his clothes.
Investigators have not disclosed what they believe Cottrell’s motive was for the murders. He was Blake’s boyfriend and lived with her, according to Louisville Fox affiliate WDRB.
Cottrell had originally pleaded not guilty to the charges against him before he changed his plea this week. Friends and family members of the victims appeared in court as his fate was sealed.
“I feel like he’s begging for his life just like they were begging for their life as he was murdering them,” Lona Kiser said, per regional CBS affiliate WKYT.
Blake — who also had a son — is remembered in her obituary as having been a dedicated nurse and a “devoted mother, pouring every ounce of her energy into the love and care of her children.”
Kennedi was “a bright light in the lives of all who knew her,” according to her obit. She was a middle school student who “excelled academically and was a passionate” softball player.
