Twisted Halloween display shows local officials in body bags

An irate Kentucky homeowner has been accused of making terroristic threats for putting out a bizarre Halloween display showing local officials in body bags.

Stephan Marcum, 58, was charged Saturday over the macabre display, which showed five effigies with signs suggesting they were officials — including the mayor, county attorney and zoning manager for his hometown of Stanton, about 45 miles southeast of Lexington.

“The one hanging was labeled ‘district judge.’ There was a rope around the neck of the body,” police wrote in the arrest citation obtained by Lex18.

Marcum was taken into custody after refusing to take down the display or talk to cops.

Just days earlier, he ranted online about a beef with local officials after learning in court that he “violated a number of City Ordinances” at his home.

He mentioned in that rant some of the same the post included the five named in his display — 39th District Judge Gary Salyers, County Attorney Robert King, Zoning Manager Ann Snowden, Stanton Mayor Willie Means and the mayor’s sister.

“This is something you just don’t see every day,” Powell County Judge Executive Eddie Barnes, who was not one of those named in the display, told WKYT.

Barnes said he’s known Marcum for years and knows he chose an inappropriate way to express his frustration.

Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, emphasized that while free speech is protected by the First Amendment, threats are not.

“If you’re actively threatening someone in a terrorizing way, that may not be covered by the general right to free expression,” Voss told WKYT..

Voss added in the current political climate, especially in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, that “we’re seeing a little bit less tolerance for violent communication or violent imagery because there seems to be a greater risk people will enact it or carry it out.”

What in the past may have been viewed as “somewhat tongue-and-cheek …. may not be seen as funny or as innocent these days,” Voss said.