2003, finishing third to then-United States Representative Ernie Fletcher of Lexington, whom Nunn then supported. Former State Representative Bob Heleringer, then of Eastwood in suburban Jefferson County, ran as the lieutenant governor selection on Nunn's ticket. In the primary, Nunn received 21,167 votes (13.4 percent), but Fletcher led the four-candidate field with 90,912 (57.3 percent). Rebecca Jackson polled 44,084 (27.8 percent) and Virgil Moore polled 2,365 (1.5 percent). Fletcher went on to win the position in the general election by defeating Democrat Attorney General Ben Chandler, the grandson of Happy Chandler. Fletcher was the first Republican to be elected governor of Kentucky since Louie B. Nunn upset Henry Ward in November 1967. On November 7, 2006, after fifteen years as a state representative, Nunn lost his bid for re-election to the Democrat Johnny Bell. Nunn polled 5,572 votes (46.7 percent) to Bell's 6,371 ballots (53.3 percent). In September 2007, Nunn announced his support of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Beshear, a former lieutenant governor who handily unseated Fletcher in the Republican's bid for re-election. In November 2007 he was appointed to Beshear's transition team. On December 22, 2007, Beshear appointed Nunn as deputy secretary of Health and Family Services. Murder of ex-fiancée In March 2009, Steve Nunn, 56, resigned his state position as deputy secretary for the Health and Family Services Cabinet after having been placed on administrative leave in February as a result of a February 19 assault in Lexington on 29-year-old Amanda Ross, his former fiancée, who had procured a protective order against him for domestic violence. On September 11, 2009, Ross was found shot to death outside of the Opera House Square complex in Lexington. That same day, Nunn was found by police with his wrists slit in Hart County near the grave sites of his parents. He was arrested and taken to a hospital in Bowling Green, where he was in fair condition from the wounds, which were first considered to be self-inflicted. Nunn was charged with six counts of wanton endangerment of a police officer because when authorities arrived to arrest him, they reported that Nunn had fired a .38-caliber handgun. On September 14, Nunn was taken to the Hart County jail after having been discharged from the hospital. The same day, Nunn was charged by Lexington police with Ross's murder. On September 17, Nunn was transferred to the Fayette County Detention Center. The next day,