The mother of an 8-year-old Fort Wayne girl who was raped and killed in 1988 wants prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the man accused of the crimes. Prosecutors on Tuesday declined to discuss whether they’ll seek the death penalty for 59-year-old John Miller in the killing of April Tinsley. But the girl’s mother, Janet Tinsley, told the Journal Gazette that she wants to be present if Miller is put to death.
An Indiana prosecutor who’s preparing formal charges against a man in the 1988 abduction, rape and killing of an 8-year-old Fort Wayne girl says genealogy databases are powerful new tools for investigators. Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards said in an affidavit that investigators consulted a company that was able to narrow DNA in the Tinsley case to Miller and his brother using publicly available genealogy database research.
A judge has given prosecutors until Thursday to formally charge a man who is being held in the 1988 slaying of an 8-year-old Fort Wayne girl. John D. Miller, 59, of Grabill was arrested Sunday on preliminary murder, child molesting and criminal confinement charges in the abduction, rape and killing of April Marie Tinsley.
Two more men have been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a Boone County sheriff’s deputy.
A northern Indiana judge has agreed to enter an injunction against a Chicago attorney accused of making “extrajudicial statements” in defense of a mentally-disabled man currently serving time for an Elkhart murder.
A man who sought a second resentencing after his 2003 murder convictions unsuccessfully argued that he was denied fundamental due process rights 15 years after being sentenced for four counts of murder.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that retrials are not barred if a judgment of conviction is erroneously entered on a chronological case summary, letting stand a murder conviction after the retrial of a man charged with the death of his girlfriend’s infant daughter.
Prosecutors are reviewing the case of an Indiana man charged with attempted murder, because the man he is accused of shooting last summer died from his injuries.
A Vigo County man convicted of killing a woman and then setting fires in an attempt to cover up the evidence lost his bid to have some of his convictions overturned Tuesday.
The parents of a northwestern Indiana woman who was fatally shot in 2011 have reached a settlement with an insurance company over damages in connection with the man convicted in her killing.
The second of six men charged in connection with a double slaying in northern Indiana has been sentenced to decades in prison.
The Indiana Supreme Court has overturned a ruling for a convicted murderer to get a new trial and instead reinstated the murder and drug convictions after determining the defendant invited the structural error that compromised his right to an impartial jury.
A man who set up his childhood friend in a “drug deal gone bad” and was sentenced to 20 years for his conviction of Level 2 felony robbery got no relief Monday from the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The Indiana Supreme Court is no longer tasked with providing clarification on two conflicting rulings related to insurance coverage for parties accused of acting negligently when a co-insured is accused of acting intentionally or criminally, now that the parties to the underlying case have submitted the case for mediation.
A Lake Station man convicted of killing his girlfriend has been sentenced to 70 years in prison. Jovanni Torres, 32, was sentenced Friday to 60 years for murder and 10 years for using a firearm in the crime.
Nearly 13 years after he was found guilty of a murder he claims he did not commit and following a subsequent series of failed attempts at appellate and post-conviction relief, a developmentally disabled man has petitioned the Elkhart Circuit Court to overturn his conviction on the basis of new evidence he says proves his confession was coerced and his counsel was ineffective. Andrew Royer filed a petition to vacate the judgment against him on Wednesday.
A man charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a Boone County sheriff’s deputy wants his trial moved. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Anthony Baumgardt, who is charged in the fatal shooting of deputy Jacob Pickett.
A Gary man sentenced to death for killing his wife and two teenage stepchildren has lost his latest attempt to overturn his conviction – a post-conviction relief petition. Lake Superior Judge Samuel Cappas and Magistrate Judge Natalie Bokota determined in a ruling issued Friday that Kevin Isom of Gary failed to establish he had ineffective counsel at his murder trial or during the appeals process.
An accomplice in the 2015 kidnapping and slayings of two teenage brothers in Gary has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Kiontay Cason, 24, apologized in court for his role in the murders of 18-year-old Arreon Lackey and 16-year-old Antonio Lackey.
Capital cases are entering what one judge calls uncharted territory, faced with determining whether an accused killer is entitled to court-appointed counsel of his choice or must be represented by a lawyer certified to defend death penalty cases.