A woman found shot to death Friday inside her rental home in Smiths Grove has been identified as Dealynn O’Connor, 51, according to Kentucky State Police Post 3 spokesman Trooper B.J. Eaton.

In addition to the homicide, O’Connor was also the victim earlier this year in a kidnapping and assault case in Hardin County. Officials have not said if the two cases could be related.

O’Connor lived at 1325 Hays Lodge Road, near the area where Warren, Edmonson and Barren counties meet. 

State police have classified her death as a murder and are investigating.

O’Connor was also the victim of an assault in Radcliff on Jan. 31, Radcliff Police Department Capt. Willie Wells said. O’Connor told Louisville television station WDRB in a interview posted to the station’s website in February that she was taken to a bridge and ordered to jump. When she refused, she was stabbed.

“Every time I refused to do what they told me to do, I would get stabbed,” she said in the interview. 

She said she was hit with a bat and kicked. 

“They kept telling me to jump, and I wasn’t gonna jump. I couldn’t feel anything and they started stabbing me,” O’Connor said in the WDRB interview.

Five people have been arrested in that case, Wells said. He referred all other questions about the case to the Hardin County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

The case against all five is set for a jury trial in September, First Assistant Hardin County Commonwealth’s Attorney Chris McCrary said. 

Trevor Brown, 20, Angela New, 43, Schawn Millin, 38, Chris Deaton, 28, and Marc McCoy, age unavailable, are all under indictment in Hardin County, accused of complicity to kidnapping, first-degree assault of O’Connor and other offenses.

O’Connor was stabbed multiple times, McCrary said.

McCrary declined to comment on the motive in the Hardin County case and declined to say if the case there and her homicide in Smiths Grove could be related.

Warren County Sheriff Jerry “Peanuts” Gaines, who has lived in Smiths Grove for 44 years, said homicides in that part of the county are uncommon.

“This is the first thing we’ve had like that,” Gaines said.

“It’s a peaceful little community,” he said. “All we’ve got is a big truck stop and an IGA store.”

The shooting occurred about 4 or 5 miles from Gaines’ home. 

A bartender at Bowling Green’s Pit Stop Bar & Grill, a business that O’Connor patronized, said she has known O’Connor for four or five years and remembers her as a “nice person.”

“She used to come here often, and she was really a nice person,” said Jan, who declined to provide her last name. “She was always nice, never no trouble. She took care of her mom. Her mom lives in a nursing home. I really hate that. I never saw nothing bad out of her. She enjoyed life.” 

Attempts to reach multiple friends of O’Connor on Facebook were either unsuccessful or those reached declined to comment.

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.