Kentucky Downs Casino Café Manager Hired Co-Worker to Kill Love Rival

A café manager at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ken. was sentenced to 40 years in a federal prison Tuesday for the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s former husband.

Freddy Gonzalez, 40, hired another employee from the Corner Café at Kentucky Downs’ Mint Gaming Hall, convicted felon Xavior Posey, to kill Brian Russell after Gonzalez became obsessed with Russell’s ex-wife, Miranda Russell.

Gonzalez rewarded Posey, 26, with $2,000, a pickup truck, and a salary raise for carrying out the murder. Posey was handed a 35-year prison term on Tuesday.

Franklin police were called to the victim’s home on the morning of Dec. 30, 2020, after receiving reports of gunfire. There they found Russell suffering from three gunshot wounds, two to the chest and one to the head.

The victim was “sweating profusely and struggling to breathe and begging for help,” according to court filings. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Childhood Sweethearts

The court heard that the Russells had been childhood sweethearts. In 2018, after 16 years of marriage, they separated and divorced, “but continued dating on and off,” according to prosecutors. They also maintained contact so they could co-parent their two children.

A month later, she left Brian and began seeing Gonzalez again, before splitting up with him for good on December 15. She spent the two weeks that remained of her ex-husband’s life with him.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez spent the next two weeks stalking Miranda and arranging Brian’s murder.

He deluged her with text messages, surreptitiously placed a digital tracking device on her car, surveilled her, and staged ‘random’ encounters with her,” prosecutors said.

Brian Russell told co-workers in the days leading up to his death that Gonzalez had threatened to kill him and had even pointed a gun at him. This made Gonzalez the prime suspect in the murder, although he denied involvement in a subsequent police interview.

Tracking Device Untangles Plot

When investigators found the tracking device Gonzalez had planted on Miranda Russell’s car, which the victim had been driving, and switched it off, Gonzalez called the Franklin Police Department “within minutes,” according to court filings.

He admitted to installing the device, which he said “was used to solely track [Miranda] to see if she was being faithful during our relationship with each other.”

I did not know that the ex-husband was going to be using her car at any point when I put the device into her car,” Gonzalez added.

Police arrested Gonzalez on a first-degree stalking charge and confiscated his phone, subsequently securing a search warrant to examine its contents. They were able to retrieve text messages between Gonzalez and Posey that incriminated them both in the murder. These conversations used the phrase “cleaning the kitchen” as code for the crime.

When police arrested Posey on Jan. 9, 2021, on outstanding warrants, they found Gonzalez’s hand-drawn map of the victim’s home.