Man receives life for girlfriend’s murder

Published 2:51 pm Monday, August 24, 2026

Madison Mercer said that her bond with Alexandra Hemmann transcended friendship and felt more like a sisterhood between kindred spirits.

“She pulled me out of some of the lowest days of my life and showed me how to see the world in color again,” Mercer said.

Mercer described her friendship Monday in a courtroom, standing a few feet from the man who took Hemmann’s life.

David Proffitt, 28, was given a life sentence by Warren Circuit Judge Chris Cohron, two months after a jury found Proffitt guilty of murdering the 22-year-old Hemmann on Aug. 4, 2023.

Hemmann’s body was not found until Aug. 12, 2023, in the bedroom of her Winners Circle apartment.

Proffitt was also convicted at trial of abuse of a corpse, theft by unlawful taking, three counts of second-degree forgery and a count of being a second-degree persistent felony offender.

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During the trial in June, jurors heard evidence that Proffitt fatally strangled Hemmann in the apartment after a verbal argument, sexually abused her body, wrote a check to himself from Hemmann’s checkbook that he cashed at a bank and then drove Hemmann’s car to Indiana, where he paid for a motel room and spent time with friends.

In the time between the homicide and the discovery of Hemmann’s body, Proffitt returned to Bowling Green to pay rent on the apartment with another check from her checkbook and then wrote one more check to himself that he cashed before returning to Indiana to rent another room at the same motel.

It was also revealed that Proffitt sent numerous text messages from Hemmann’s phone to her friends posing as her, purporting that she was sick and that Proffitt had been hospitalized with a brain tumor.

Hemmann’s friends who testified at trial said they were unable to reach her through phone calls and last heard Hemmann’s voice on Aug. 3, 2023.

Police arrested Proffitt in Fishers, Indiana, on Aug. 12, 2023, and he gave a detailed confession to detectives from the Bowling Green Police Department.

At Monday’s sentencing hearing, Mercer and three other people close to Hemmann supplied victim impact statements.

Mercer and Hemmann were former co-workers at Lowe’s in Bowling Green, and testimony at trial emerged that Hemmann and other Lowe’s employees had spent the night of Aug. 3, 2023, celebrating with dinner and drinks after a successful store inventory check.

Alexus Trent, another friend of Hemmann’s, said that Proffitt was responsible for destroying a family and numerous friendships and causing “a pain that will never fully heal.”

“You left her for days as if her life meant nothing — she deserved dignity, she deserved to be treated like the precious person she was,” Trent said, addressing Proffitt. “We deserved more time with her.”

Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Kori Beck Bumgarner read a victim impact statement from Hemmann’s mother, Rena Hemmann.

Rena Hemmann wrote that her daughter brought joy to the household, whether through backyard wiffleball games at family reunions or time spent wrapping Christmas presents.

“There is no joy in our lives anymore,” Rena Hemmann wrote. “Holidays are just an extra struggle to get through.”

Proffitt did not testify at his trial and made no statements Monday other than to answer “yes” or “no” to a few questions from Cohron.