PULASKI COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — Terry Hensley was sentenced to 14 years in prison Thursday morning after previously accepting a plea deal and pleading guilty to a first-degree manslaughter charge for a crash that killed his 36-year-old girlfriend.
Somerset Police said on Feb. 4, 2019, Hensley was driving a car that crashed into a pole killing his passenger, 36-year-old Amanda Woodall Goodman. The crash happened at the intersection of Grande Avenue and East Mt. Vernon. Detectives reported Hensley was under the influence of methamphetamine.
Hensley and Goodman were in an on-and-off relationship for a decade that Goodman's mother Darlene Campbell described as unhealthy.
"He controlled everything she did. He would call her bad names and tell her nobody else is gonna have her and cuss at her. Just do anything to control her, and she couldn't get out of that relationship," Campbell said.
Hensley and Goodman have a 9-year-old son together.
"She loved her little boy and her little boy loved her. Like nothing, I'm telling you, he was a mama's boy. And she was just a sweetheart and she didn't deserve to die the way she did, that's for sure," said Campbell. "I'm his grandmother and but I still don't take the place of his mommy."
Campbell explained Hensley's sentence could never have been long enough. She said,
"There's no justice at all," she said. "Justice will be getting my daughter back."
Campbell had a message for Hensley during his time in jail.
"I hope this is this year, in these years that you found God in your heart, and you can try to find it, my heart to forgive you for what you did. But I hope that you realize, I want him to realize the hurt that he caused his son to take his mother away," said Campbell. "And I hope that he finds in his heart to accept what he did to her and ask God for forgiveness for what he did and get his life on the right track, you know, when he does get out to be a good example for his son."
Campbell also explained she hopes others in unhealthy relationships will have the strength to leave for a better life.
"The best thing to do is get out if you're in a bad relationship because it can end like this," she said. "It can end in something bad happening and then your children won't have you to raise them and to be there for them. And that's the hardest part is her little boy, you know, not having her."
