Missing Kentucky woman Marly Kinney identified after Grayson Lake search

Kentucky wildlife officials identified the body recovered from Grayson Lake in Carter County on June 28 as Marly Kinney, the 19-year-old from Ashland who had been missing since Wednesday afternoon, June 24. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources said Kinney’s family and the Carter County coroner were notified after the recovery at about 3:45 p.m., but the cause of death will be determined by the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort.

Kinney was last seen on June 24 on a pontoon boat at Grayson Lake Marina, according to reporting that cited the immediate timeline from the search. She was aboard a boat with a group of 10 people and reportedly left around 4 p.m. to use the restroom. The boat’s captain, Cameron Conley, later told marina officials he could not locate her. Kentucky state troopers said Conley showed signs of impairment and registered a preliminary blood-alcohol concentration of 0.127, above Kentucky’s legal boating limit. Conley was arrested on a boating-while-impaired charge and later released. Authorities have not announced any homicide charge tied to Kinney’s death.

The search for Kinney became a large interagency operation across the 1,300-acre lake, which is managed by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and sits beside Grayson Lake State Park and the Grayson Lake Wildlife Management Area in eastern Kentucky. Crews used boats, divers, sonar, Kentucky State Police helicopters, drones, UTVs, ATVs, K9 teams and cadaver dogs, along with more than 50 local volunteers. A local report said the search lasted about five days before Kinney’s body was found.

The recovery has narrowed the investigation but left the central question unanswered: how Kinney ended up in the water. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife public information officer Lisa Jackson said officials did not want to release additional details while the search was ongoing and that their focus remained on locating Marly. With the body now identified and the medical examiner set to determine cause and manner of death, investigators can begin piecing together the hours after she vanished from the pontoon boat and whether the impairment allegation around the boat’s captain becomes significant to the case. An online fundraiser for Kinney’s family had already raised more than $10,000, underscoring how quickly the missing-person search turned into a death investigation.