Posted on January 28, 2021

Teen Tells IMPD That Older Brother Murdered 6 in Family Home

Russ McQuaid, Fox 59, January 25, 2021

Detectives from IMPD’s Violent Crime Unit arrived in Plainfield overnight to arrest a juvenile teenager accused of killing six people in his parents’ home before dawn Sunday.

The teen will likely be charged in Marion Superior Court as an adult by the end of the week.

An IMPD report obtained by FOX59 recounts how the first officers who arrived on the scene discovered the suspect’s younger brother suffering from gunshots wounds and heard the account he provided that led investigators to a house in the 3500 block of North Adams Street, on the city’s east side, where the bodies of the other victims were discovered.

The dead have been identified as the parents of the home, Kezzie and Raymond Childs, both 42, their 18-year-old son, Elijah, and 13-year-old daughter, Rita, and 19-year-old Kiara Hawkins, who died along with her near-full term unborn son.

Investigators have not announced the name of the father of the child.

In custody is a 17-year-old male, while a younger brother is still hospitalized and recovering from his wounds.

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When detectives interviewed the boy at the hospital, he reportedly told police that his older brother had been reprimanded by his father for leaving the home without permission, and the son was told the issue would be resolved later, but that the teen disagreed.

It was then, the boy said, that while he was downstairs in the home with his parents, they heard gunfire upstairs and his sister yelling, “He shot them,” followed by the sound of more gunshots.

The teen said then his brother, “came down the stairs with a draco gun, a handgun that shoots rifle rounds, and started shooting.”

The boy said he ran out the side door of the home, his brother pursuing him and firing away, which would account for the four gunshots neighbors told FOX59 they heard.

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There have been 21 homicides in Indianapolis thus far this year, putting the city’s 2021 murder tally well ahead of last year’s record pace.

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