Life & Loss: The Medlock Family's Story

It has been two years since our community was shaken up with the devastating news of the death of London Police Department Officer Logan Medlock.

Logan was killed in the line of duty by a drunk driver on October 30, 2022—something that forever changed the lives of many that day, but especially the lives of his wife, Courtney Medlock and his son, Brantley Medlock.

“I always say that when he died, a part of me died too, and they just forgot to bury it,” Courtney said. “And that’s exactly what it felt like, because that's all I've ever known, since I was 15, was me and Logan.”

The pair were the textbook definition of high school sweethearts, though they were attending rival schools. Courtney was a cheerleader at South Laurel High School, while Logan played football as a North Laurel High School Jaguar.

“Really, our paths would never cross,” Courtney said.

But as fate would have it, the two met unexpectedly the summer before the start of their sophomore year at Levi Jackson State Park Pool, a place Courtney frequented at the time. Courtney and her friend were sitting by the pool when Logan was coming through the gate with another friend of hers and he immediately caught her eye.

“I remember going to get something to drink on purpose so we could walk in front of him and when we went over there, our mutual friend introduced us,” she said. “I remember he had a cross necklace on, that was one of the first things I noticed, and those big blue eyes and that blonde hair.”

The two ended up seeing more and more of each other that summer through their mutual friend and eventually developed their own friendship. Once school began, Logan and Courtney continued to stay in touch and with the North/South football game coming up, Logan decided they should make a bet.

“He said ‘if South wins, we’ll go to the movies and I’ll pay for your movie ticket and if North wins, we’ll go to the movies and you’ll pay for mine,’ and I said ‘OK, that works.’” she said.

That next day, despite his school winning the crosstown rival football game, Logan not only paid for Courtney’s movie ticket, but he paid for her popcorn, her drink and anything else she wanted. That evening, the pair spent the entirety of the movie lost in conversation, really getting to know one another.

“They say when you know, you know and so at 15, I was like ‘I'm going to marry this guy’ and you know, he told me he said the same thing to his friends, like ‘this is it,’” Courtney said.

 “When we had Brantley, Logan cried, and he was just like ‘I've never seen something so beautiful in my life’ and ‘we created this’ and just really in that moment,” Courtney said. “We were really, really happy and that happiness just continued to grow. We were just so excited to be a family, and we would often sit and talk like ‘look at our family.’ It came from two 15-year-olds that everybody thought wouldn't last and here we are—we did it, we made it.”

One of Courtney’s favorite memories she has of her husband and son together was hearing the two of them running through the house having a Nerf war while she was in the kitchen cooking dinner and suddenly, she heard something break in another room and then she heard whispers between Logan and Brantley. “Don’t tell Mommy,” Courtney recalled Logan saying.

“It’s soul crushing because those memories, that happiness that you can look back on and remember are also the ones that kill you because I'm cooking now and there is silence,” she said. “I can hear Brantley playing, but I don't hear the giggles of the two of them together and the running and the breaking stuff. It's almost like I wish something would break.”

Courtney said Logan told her of his dreams of becoming a police officer quickly after they started dating, saying it was a dream of his to follow in his father’s footsteps and Courtney always supported that dream.

Logan worked for some time at the Laurel County Detention Center as a correctional officer before being hired into the London Police Department in August 2019. He later graduated from the Department of Criminal Justice in January 2020 and immediately returned to work with the London PD.

Logan also did roofing as a side job with Kirby Contracting, something Courtney said Logan enjoyed doing with one of his closest friends when he wasn’t working at the police department.

Aside from spending time with his family and his work, Logan enjoyed fishing, hunting and working out. Courtney is thankful her son has some memories of following his father around in the gym, fishing with Logan and said that Brantley even went squirrel hunting with Logan just weeks before he died.

Brantley was only five years old when his father, Logan, was killed in the line of duty, and only two months into his kindergarten year.

“Logan and I were so ecstatic for his first year in school and we talked about that a lot when he started school, all the fun things that come with school,” she said. “Getting to hear about their day and their friends and the class parties, the field trips—we were just so, so excited to be in that stage of life.”

Today, Brantley is seven years old and is the spitting image of his father.

“He looks just like him, he acts just like him,” Courtney said. “His mannerisms are the same. It's almost like ‘whoa,’ it's a copy and paste moment for sure.”

Much like his father, Brantley enjoys hunting and fishing, something Courtney hopes to do with him later this year. He also enjoys soccer and painting, as well. Courtney said that her son has even expressed his own desires to be a police officer one day, often walking around in a uniform the police department had made for him after his father’s death.

The Medlocks had just closed on their first home in June of 2022 and Logan had just purchased his dream vehicle, a Ford F-250.

“It seemed like we had made it, you know,” Courtney said. “We had worked our butts off to get here and we made it.”

On October 29, 2022, Courtney was planning to take Brantley to Boo on Main by herself because Logan had to work that night. Courtney remembers she and Logan embracing for longer than usual that evening before he headed out the door, but the couple had no idea that would be the last time they saw one another.

At 3 a.m., Courtney was suddenly awoken by the sound of her doorbell and then someone banging at the front door. Courtney flew down the stairs and opened the door to see Logan’s dad, his stepmom, her mom and a retired major from the police department.

“I just locked eyes with Randy (Logan’s father)—it was quiet, just eerie silence, then Randy looked at me and said, ‘Logan's dead’ and I remember just falling and he caught me and he just held me.”

The next several hours were a blur for Courtney, the images of people coming in and out of her home while she sat in shock and disbelief, the immense grief of just losing her husband hanging over her.

“For a brief period of time, it was just us and Brantley woke up and he came in and he said ‘mommy, did I have a dream that daddy went to heaven?’ So, I had to tell him that it wasn't a dream, that he did have to go to heaven. Brantley was just bawling. How can a five-year-old wrap his head around the fact that he just lost his dad? And I don't know how to help myself, much less help him at this exact moment, so I just held him and cried with him.”

Courtney didn’t have a lot of time to grieve, though, she admitted. From planning her husband’s funeral to answering phone calls to filling out paperwork to meeting with lawyers and being in court, she was constantly busy doing something and has been for almost the last two years.

Earlier this year, on what would have been Logan’s 28th birthday, justice was finally served when the man who hit and killed Logan was found guilty and will be serving 20 years in prison.

“It has been a very long, hard road and now we are trying to come out on the other side,” Courtney said, with the hope that she and Brantley can now begin to heal as much as their hearts are able, all while keeping Logan’s memory alive.

“The best way to keep Logan's memory alive is just talking about Logan every single day and for people to not be afraid to bring him up in conversation to me,” she said. “I know some people are hesitant because they don't know if I'm going to cry or may not want to be reminded, but the thing is, he deserves to be remembered.”

Courtney hopes that her family’s story will deter someone from making a possibly life-changing choice.

“Drinking and driving is a choice, a selfish, stupid choice,” she said. “We, as adults, should not be making these choices. When we get on the road and we are intoxicated, know that that you can kill someone else, you can kill yourself. Are you ready for your mom to plan your funeral and grieve herself to death? Are you ready to sit in prison because you've killed someone else?”

Courtney said she wouldn’t have been able to make it through the last two years had it not been for her relationship with God.

“He has carried us through this every step of the way since October 30, 2022,” she said. “I urge people that if you don't have a relationship with God, you get one because he's going to be there for you when no one else is.”

Courtney wishes to thank the community for coming together following Logan’s death, from bringing food to just checking in to praying for her and her family. And she wants to thank those who continue to check in and pray for them. 

 “It doesn't go unnoticed, and we are so thankful to live in a town that when something tragic happens, we all come together, and you feel loved and supported.”