KRS 397.1005: Evidence of death or status.

In addition to the rules of evidence in courts of general jurisdiction, for the purposes of

KRS 397.1001 to 397.1007 only, the following rules relating to a determination of death

and status shall apply:

(1) Death shall be deemed to occur when the require ments of KRS 446.400 have been

met.

(2) A certified or authenticated copy of a death certificate purporting to be issued by an

official or agency of the place where the death purportedly occurred shall be prima

facie evidence of the fact, place, date, and time of death and the identity of the

decedent.

(3) A certified or authenticated copy of any record or report of a governmental agency,

domestic or foreign, that an individual is missing, detained, dead, or alive shall be

prima facie evidence of the status and of the dates, circumstances, and places

disclosed by the record or report.

(4) In the absence of prima facie evidence of death under subsection (2) or (3) of this

section, the fact of death shall be established by clear and convincing evidence,

including circumstantial evidence.

(5) An individual whose death is not established under subsection (2), (3), or (4) of this

section and who is absent for a continuous period of seven (7) years, during which

the individual has not been heard from, and whose abs ence is not satisfactorily

explained after diligent search or inquiry, shall be presumed dead. His or her death

shall be presumed to have occurred at the end of the period unless there is sufficient

evidence for determining that death occurred earlier.

(6) In the absence of evidence disputing the time of death stipulated on a document

described in subsection (2) or (3) of this section, a document described in

subsection (2) or (3) of this section that stipulates a time of death one hundred

twenty (120) hour s or more after the time of death of another individual, however

the time of death of the other individual is determined, establishes by clear and

convincing evidence that the individual survived the other individual by one

hundred twenty (120) hours.