Douglas Walker

dwalker@muncie.gannett.com

MUNCIE, Ind. — Two recent fatal shootings in Muncie could lead to the filing of murder charges — but not against those who fired the gunshots.

City police say both of the shooting victims — 26-year-old Scott Allen Gilliam on Sept. 21, and 21-year-old Trayon L. Turner on Oct. 8 — were gunned down while trying to force their way into local homes to commit armed robberies.

At this point, Delaware County prosecutors do not plan to file shooting-related charges against the occupants of those homes who opened fire, saying that they acted in self-defense.

Under Indiana’s felony murder charge, accomplices to slayings frequently are prosecuted for murder despite not having inflicted the fatal wounds.

The statute also gives Indiana prosecutors an option far less frequently employed — to charge the alleged accomplices of a shooting victim with felony murder.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman said such filings are possible in both the Gilliam and Owens homicides.

“We’re considering that,” he said. “I’ve conducted research. It’s a possibility and it may happen in the near future in those cases.”

Hoffman declined to discuss details of the local cases.

“What the Supreme Court has said is that you can charge and convict somebody of felony murder (when an accomplice in a criminal conspiracy has been killed),” he said.

To pursue such a case, the prosecutor said, two questions must be considered — “Did the defendant engage in dangerous conduct? And was it reasonably foreseeable that someone’s death could occur?”

Shots through the front door

Muncie police said Scott Gilliam was shot in the head outside an apartment house in the 1500 block of East Washington Street about 3 a.m. on Sept. 21.

Investigators said Gilliam and another Muncie man, William Joseph Smith, 27, tried to force their way into an apartment, intending to rob its occupant of cash and marijuana.

City police Sgt. Mike Engle said the occupant of the apartment — 27-year-old Cornell Lamont Strong II — had a video surveillance system, and could see two men with firearms were trying to kick his front door in.

Strong fired two gunshots through his front door, Engle said. One of the bullets struck and killed Gilliam.

Smith, arrested the day after Gilliam’s death, has since been charged robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, robbery and two counts of burglary with a deadly weapon.

Some of those charges stem from attempts to stage an armed home invasion at another Muncie home the same night.

Later, authorities arrested and charged four other young Muncie men — Damian C. Ginns, James D. Hill, Davontaye M. Moffitt and Tyrell L. Montgomery — with being players in the robbery conspiracy.

Hoffman declined to specify which of those defendants, if any, could also be charged with felony murder in Gilliam’s death.

“I suppose broadly we’re looking at everyone that could have been involved,” he said.

Armed home invasion

Trayon Turner died, of a gunshot wound in the head, in the doorway of an apartment in the 1700 block of North Glenwood Avenue about 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 8.

The occupant of that apartment, Darjae M. Houston, a 23-year-old Ball State University student from Indianapolis, told police she opened fire when two masked intruders with guns forced their way into her apartment.

One of the intruders shot a male guest in Houston’s home in the wrist, investigators said.

Authorities say Turner’s cousin, Delon Martez Owens, also 21 and of Indianapolis, was the other masked intruder, and was also hit by Houston’s gunfire.

Arrested after a girlfriend took him to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital for treatment of his bullet wounds, Owens — who hours earlier had attended a party at Houston’s apartment — is charged with burglary with a deadly weapon, two counts of robbery, and carrying a handgun without a license.

He will likely soon learn whether he will also be charged with felony murder in his cousin’s death.

The Elkhart County case

A high-profile case saw four young Indiana men convicted of felony murder after their accomplice in a plot to burglarize an Elkhart home was shot to death by their would-be victim in 2012.

Those convictions were thrown out by the Indiana Supreme Court in September 2015. The justices did not, however, rule that the state’s felony murder statute was invalid.

Hoffman noted the facts of the Elkhart case — involving unarmed defendants who believed they were breaking into an unoccupied house — were significantly different than those in the recent Muncie cases.

Veteran Muncie attorney Jack Quirk, Delaware County’s chief public defender, noted the Elkhart County case when asked about the concept of charging accomplices with felony murder.

“Normally we punish intentional acts, not unintentional acts,” Quirk said.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. Follow him on Twitter: @DouglasWalkerSP.