Friend, attorney reacts to guilty plea in murder of Horsey Hundred cyclist

Monday night, a family starts moving forward two years after the death of a well-respected Lexington lawyer.

Odilon Paz-Salvador pleaded guilty Monday to hitting Mark Hinkel with his car as the attorney rode a bicycle in Scott County’s annual Horsey Hundred.

A ghost bike monument marks the spot, the 99th mile of the Horsey Hundred, where Mark Hinkel died.

The Horsey Hundred is a major cycling event, a beautiful, fun tour through the Bluegrass, but in 2015 a death on the route shook a whole community.

Police say Odilon Paz-Salvador hit 57-year-old Mark Hinkel head on, then continued driving three miles with Hinkel in the back of his truck.

When police stopped him, he told them he had drunk six beers and had smoked weed.

With a guilty plea in court Monday, Paz-Salvador admitted to killing Hinkel.

“In some sense, it is a relief,” Bennett Bayer said.

He is the family’s attorney. He also represents ABC 36. He took the case, not just for work, but because he was Hinkel’s close friend since law school.

“Mark was famous for his personality. He was renowned throughout the state. No matter who you talked to, people would have a Mark Hinkel story,” Bayer said.

Bayer says Hinkel was well-respected by friends, and opponents. He was a passionate bicyclist, a husband with three daughters, two grandchildren, and a third now on the way.

“Probably the biggest loss people have now is just turning around and wondering where he is,” Bayer said.

A second family is also reeling because of his death. To get their side of the story, ABC 36 tried to talk to Paz-Salvador’s wife at the Lexington market she works at, but over the phone she told a co-worker she didn’t want to talk to us.

Back at the firm, where his friend is now memorialized with a conference room, Bayer says the guilty plea brings a sense of finality. The family will not have to sit through court, but, Bayer says that’s only a relief in some sense.

“The one thing it does not relieve them of is the loss, and that can never, ever be accomplished,” Bayer said.

Prosecutors recommend Paz-Salvador serve 35 years behind bars.