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According to court records, an Indianapolis man accused of dying in the cold behind a laundromat in February fell asleep while the woman was “hanging and drinking” in the car. After that, he told police that he had dragged the woman into the snow.
Justin Holman, 36, is reckless more than four months after police found 50-year-old Chanel Smith dead to a snowman behind a laundromat early on February 19. I was charged with murder.
A night surveillance video obtained by IndyStar shows a man dragging a seemingly unresponsive Smith out of the passenger seat of a black sedan, throwing a woman’s belongings next to him and driving a car.
An autopsy performed on the same day revealed that Smith had died from “cold environmental exposure,” but Coroner, Marion County, showed that the video intentionally left an unconscious woman in a harsh element, as the video showed. He said Indyster Smith’s death was determined to be a murder.
Investigators were able to identify Holman as a suspect by matching some of the Pontiac G6 features seen in the footage with other street surveillance videos, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The day after the incident, police tracked the car to a residence half a mile away from the laundromat and found Holman. “I wore the same jacket and hat as the suspect seen in the video that pulled out Mr. Smith. According to the affidavit, he left her in the snow and ice by car,” said the detective. Before talking.
Holman told the detective that he and Smith were “hanging out” in his car between the laundromat and the adjacent liquor store on the afternoon of the incident. Smith fell asleep and said, “I didn’t get up, so I pulled her out of the car and left.”
“Everyone is very angry”
Police identified Holman as a suspect the day after the incident, but he was formally charged with a reckless murder on June 29 and arrested two days later.
The coroner’s office sentenced police to murder on April 30, and the office told Indy Star. Toxicology tests can take 8 to 12 weeks to produce results.
“If this is determined to be a murder, the criminal investigation will go in another direction,” said Jennae Cook, a spokesman for the agency, said IMPD officer Jennae Cook, who cannot go into the details of the ongoing investigation. Stated. “All of that takes time.”
Holman is out of prison with a $ 3,000 bond, records show, and a preliminary hearing in this case is scheduled for October 5.
For Smith’s family, the arrest of the suspect in the case is welcome news. But for some, the charges against Holman are too light.
John Wallace, the father of Smith’s two children (10 and 12 years old), said of the accusation against Holman, “Everyone is very angry … because he is level 5 (felony). I’m just trapped in it. “
“So far, I’m not very happy with the case,” Wallace added. “My children will never be able to see their mother again because of what he did.”
Follow Lawrence Andrea on Twitter @lawrencegandrea..
This article was originally published in The Indianapolis Star: An Indiana man charged with littering killed a woman who died in the cold
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