‘I went crazy.’ Kentucky woman who shot boyfriend over thermostat is going to prison

A Kentucky woman who shot her boyfriend during an argument over the thermostat setting will spend the next 15 years in jail, according to police and media reports.

Candy Moss, 53, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and must serve at least 85 percent of her sentence before being considered for parole, WBKO reported.

The incident occurred Nov. 28, 2018 at a home in Smiths Grove, where Kentucky State Police troopers later found Steve Flynn sitting in a recliner suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, police said. Flynn was alert and talking and Moss told troopers, “I went crazy and shot him” the morning before, an arrest citation states.

Moss said she and her boyfriend had been together for three years and had argued for the past two weeks about her adjusting the thermostat, state police said.

“She did not know why she shot him, or remember doing so, although she was able to recall shooting him twice as he sat in the chair,” state police wrote in the citation.

After shooting her boyfriend, Moss told state police she tended to his wounds and tried calling 911 multiple times, but police found no evidence of the calls, according to court records. A .38 caliber revolver was found under the dresser and two bullet projectiles were located in a bag in a separate bedroom, state police said.

A Kentucky State Police detective testified that Moss contacted one of Flynn’s co-workers about the shooting, and that person contacted law enforcement, the Bowling Green Daily News reported. The couple had been in an abusive relationship, state police detective Joe Gregory added.

“She seemed to be in a state of regret ... as though she couldn’t believe what she had done,” Gregory said in the court hearing, according to the Daily News.

Flynn was taken to a local hospital and eventually transported by a medical helicopter to a trauma center, the Edmonson Voice reported. He survived the shooting.

Moss was charged with first-degree assault and evidence tampering, to which she initially pleaded not guilty, according to court records. She remains in the Warren County Jail following her sentencing.

This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 8:37 AM with the headline "‘I went crazy.’ Kentucky woman who shot boyfriend over thermostat is going to prison."