COA upholds murder conviction against new boyfriend

A man who shot his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend in the head at close range failed to persuade the Indiana Court of Appeals to overturn his murder conviction.

In Edward Blackburn v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-2915, vehicles driven by Edward Blackburn and Raymond Higdon were driving in the opposite direction when Cord Colgrove, Higdon’s passenger, asked Higdon to turn around and follow Blackburn’s car. Colgrove had spotted his ex-girlfriend, Augusta Hadden, in Blackburn’s vehicle. Hadden was now Blackburn’s girlfriend.

Since their recent breakup, Colgrove had repeatedly called and texted Hadden, begging her to take him back and threatening her new boyfriend. Hadden responded by getting a new phone number so Colgrove couldn’t contact her.

Higdon continued to follow Blackburn, who eventually pulled over in a grassy area. Colgrove got out of Higdon’s vehicle and attempted to talk to Hadden from outside Blackburn’s vehicle, but Blackburn rolled down his window, fired a gun and struck Colgrove in the mouth, killing him. The two men had never met before that moment, but Blackburn believed Colgrove had vandalized his car and had snitched on him to police. Blackburn had also recently told a friend that he “had something” for Colgrove, then revealed a pistol under his shirt.

Blackburn and Hadden fled the scene but were captured the next day, and Blackburn was charged with murder. One week before his trial, Blackburn filed a continuance for the absence of a witness, namely Hadden. He renewed the motion on the first morning of trial, but the Starke Circuit Court denied his motion.

The case proceeded then before a jury, and at the close of evidence Blackburn unsuccessfully proposed instructions on involuntary manslaughter and pointing a firearm at another person. His proposed instruction on reckless homicide, however, was given, but the jury convicted him of murder.

On appeal, Blackburn first argued his motion to continue based on Hadden’s absence was improperly denied. But in upholding the trial court’s decision, Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Robert Altice said Blackburn failed to meet the requirements of Indiana Code § 35-36-7-1(b)(2) to “indicate the probability of procuring the witness’s testimony within a reasonable time.”

“He can only guess that she may be in Mobile, Alabama, a general location he initially proposed during a pretrial hearing to discuss the defendant’s motion to compel immunity for Hadden from the State of October 19, 2017,” Altice wrote. “This hearing took place nearly ten months before the trial, and Blackburn was unable to make any progress in finding Hadden in the intervening months, and admitted in his affidavit to not having any prospects to change this situation.

“… While Blackburn claims Hadden’s testimony would have supported his, there’s no real way to know that it would have,” Altice continued. “In any event, since Blackburn testified, the jury was presented with his version of events in considering whether to convict him.”

The appellate court also upheld the trial court’s rejection of Blackburn’s proposed jury instruction on involuntary manslaughter as a Level 5 felony. Determining involuntary manslaughter is a factually included lesser offense of Blackburn’s murder charge, the COA said there was “no serious evidentiary dispute that Blackburn, by shooting Colgrove in the head at close range, only intended to point his firearm at him.”

“Blackburn’s lack of verbal warning at the time of the incident for Colgrove to back off before Blackburn fired his gun belies Blackburn’s testimony that the shot was only meant to warn Colgrove off, not kill him,” Altice wrote. “The jury had the opportunity to convict Blackburn for reckless homicide or acquit him on the basis of self-defense but still chose to convict him of murder, a knowing or intentional killing.”