EXCLUSIVE: Family questions death of son after injuries at Whitley County Detention Center

CORBIN, Ky. (WTVQ) —  One Corbin family is mourning the loss of their relative.
Kyle Barton was an inmate at the Whitley County Detention Center for the last two weeks, but on Sunday, tragedy struck the family.

“I’d probably tell him I love him,” says Dennis Barton, Kyle’s father on what he would tell his son.

It’s hard to imagine life without certain people, and for the Barton’s,  Sunday was a day that will forever live in agony for their family.

“He said, Mr Barton, if you, you need to get down to hospital, your son’s been in an accident or something, something happened somewhere around there and he said it’s bad. So I went on down there, went down there and, sure enough it was nothing I was expecting,” recalls Dennis Barton, on the call he got from the jail, regarding his son Kyle.

40-year-old Kyle Barton was a son, a brother, a friend and many more titles.
But for Kyle, survival was never guaranteed, struggling with drugs for over two decades.

“Kyle was a good kid. I mean, he, the term I normally use is, he was his own worst enemy because he was a drug addict and has been for a long time. And, so as parents, Dennis and I and his mom and his grandparents, everybody, you know, you worry day in and day out, you know, that he’s going to get hold of something, especially in the recent years with the fentanyl problems,” added Lori Barton, Kyle’s step-mom.

And while he struggled with a drug addiction, Kyle was also frequently in jail, something his parents say would sometimes be labeled like a blessing in disguise.

“While he’s in jail, you expect that he’s going to get clean, you know, get off the drugs and there’s, there’s been a few times he’s spent, you know, over a year in jail. So you expect ok, when he gets out, you know, he’s got this completely out of his system,” she also adds.

Two weeks ago, Kyle was arrested again something his father dennis and step mom lori saw as another opportunity for Kyle, little did they know that would be the last time.

“I heard it is bad. I didn’t know,” also said an emotional Dennis.

Lori Barton also added, “we’ve never quit trying, we’ve never quit loving him, you know, it, it, it doesn’t make him a bad person.”

As his family gets ready for a final goodbye, the Barton’s are also asking for answers to lingering questions over Kyle’s death.

“Kyle has been in and out of jail a lot for a lot of years. As crazy as this is the guards, the jailers, everybody down there, they always bragged on him,” she also adds.

Kyle’s cause of death is still under investigation.
Funeral services will be on Wednesday Oct. 4th at 2 P.M. at O’Neil-Lawson Funeral Home Chapel.
Burial will follow in the Barton Family Cemetery in Wilton.