A man charged in a 2018 Gary triple homicide was found dead in his jail cell Sunday, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez said in a statement.
Huston Bond, 32, of Gary, was formally charged Jan. 28 in the July 15, 2018, shooting deaths of Heather Talley, 27, of Hammond, her fiance Darius Ross, 28 and Nicholas Edwards, 28, both of Gary.
Co-defendant Erik P. Long, 43, also of Gary, is also charged.
Correctional officers found Bond unresponsive around 9 a.m., Martinez said. His cause of death is under investigation by the Sheriff’s Department and Lake County Coroner’s Office, he said.
No other information was released.
His lawyer, Patrick Young, confirmed Thursday Bond was a heart transplant patient several years ago. He filed a request to get Bond an emergency release from jail to home detention, which was denied by Judge Natalie Bokota on March 3, court records show.
Young said he represents Bond’s family and estate and couldn’t comment further on pending litigation.
Witnesses said Talley, Ross and Edwards were part of a group that went out to celebrate Ross’ birthday on July 14, 2018, but never came home.
Talley was shot seven times, found lying face down in the road on the 2400 block of Central Avenue in Gary, near Lake Station. She had scattered scrapes on her face and arms consistent with a “terminal fall,” investigators said.
Edwards, shot eight times and Ross, shot 12 times, were found in a car trunk near 9th Avenue and Harrison Street in Gary.
Federal authorities broke the case open when a man facing firearms charges said Bond once told him that he was involved in the slayings.
The night of the shootings, Bond said Long called Edwards to come buy drugs at a house on Martin Luther King Drive in Gary, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Edwards, Ross, Talley and a fourth unidentified person walked in the front door, while Bond slipped in the back, the man said Bond told him.
Ross and Edwards were shot inside, while Talley ran out screaming with the fourth person, charges allege. She was fatally shot outside, but the man didn’t know what happened to the other person, the affidavit states.
The man said Bond told him Edwards’ death was “planned” because he was friends with Raymon Truitt. Bond suspected Truitt and Edwards had robbed him in January 2016.
Truitt, 28, was killed in an undercover drug buy turned shootout with ATF agents near Broadway on June 7, 2018, charges allege. An agent was wounded in the gunbattle.
Witnesses told police Bond alleged Truitt had shot him previously in front of his relative’s house, charges allege.
Bond personally told investigators Truitt and Edwards were masked during the January 2016 robbery. Sometime afterward, he, Long and a third man met with Edwards to declare “peace” between them, that they were “cool.”
Cellphone records confirmed Long’s call to Edwards’ and the phones’ proximity to the house at the time of the shootings.
