Did vandals attack the wrong house? Owners think criminals were targeting previous owner, JCPS board member

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Backing out of their driveway Sunday morning, a young couple got the shock of their lives.

”I was so scared when I saw it,” Amanda McHale said. “Because it’s bright red. It’s, it’s terrifying. I seriously thought someone was going to murder me.”

Not far from Bowman Field, the front of McHale’s house on Taylorsville Road was doused with blood-red paint. It left a thick splash from the ceiling to the floor just to the right of the front door, and whoever did it, picked a paint that is proving almost impossible to remove.

”The more I tried to do with it, the more it just made a mess,” Dylan McHale said. “The paint thinners … run right off.”

The McHales moved into the house with their newborn baby in August and they wonder if they were targeted by mistake. The house previously belonged to outspoken JCPS Board of Education Vice Chairman Chris Kolb.

And the attack happened just 4 days after people protesting critical race theory disrupted a JCPS board meeting.

”Which you know leads me to believe that it’s probably not random,” Kolb said. “At that meeting, there were all manner of what I would consider to be radical right-wing folks there.”

The McHales are seeking help to remove the paint: Professional assessments have not been encouraging.

”Regardless of who it was intended for, it’s just completely uncalled for,” Amanda said. “It’s so much aggression and so much anger towards someone they presumably don’t even know. And it’s just if you want something changed, there’s right ways to do it. And this just isn’t it.”

The experience has left the couple feeling uneasy.

They have since installed security cameras.

“I’m afraid to leave (the house) and more so what I would come back to,” Dylan said. “I don’t want to come back to more of a mess or broken windows or anything like that.”

”I’m scared to go to sleep,” Amanda said, “because it happened in the middle of the night.”

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