A trial set for next week in a 2015 Gary gas station slaying has been delayed until November as a defense lawyer tries to search for a “critical” witness.
Jimmie Caldwell, 24, formerly of Gary, was charged with three co-defendants in the April 12, 2015, shooting death of Donald Fuzzell, 21, of Calumet Park, Illinois, in a botched robbery at a Gary gas station parking lot.
Defense lawyer Nicholas Barnes told Judge Salvador Vasquez Thursday that he had been unable to locate the witness, who now presumably lives in another part of the country.
Local police were unable to find the witness, who no longer lived at their last known address and Barnes said he was in the process of hiring a private investigator.
He was looking to depose the witness under oath before a trial.
Vasquez granted Barnes’ request and reset the trial to Nov. 28. Another hearing for an update on the search is set for Aug. 4, while a pretrial conference is set Oct. 27.
All four suspects were charged around three years after Fuzzell’s death, court records show.
Co-defendant Dontrall Jer’i Phillips, of Davenport, Iowa, was sentenced in March 2021 to 45 years. He apologized and said Fuzzell’s death was unintentional.
Co-defendant Daidreon Sparks’ next hearing is June 17, while Walter Rondo III’s sentencing hearing is currently set for the same day.
Fuzzell’s death was captured on the gas station’s surveillance system, according to a probable cause affidavit. At 11:06 p.m., Fuzzell parked a red Mitsubishi Lancer at a gas pump on the 2300 block of Broadway Avenue.
Fuzzell went inside the gas station and returned to his car, when a woman appeared to get Fuzzell’s attention, the affidavit states. The two talked, and Fuzzell got in his car as the woman walked away, according to the affidavit.
The video then showed two people with guns approach Fuzzell’s car and open the driver’s side door where Fuzzell was sitting, the affidavit states. The vehicle started to slowly move forward and Fuzzell leaned out of the vehicle as the two people with guns retreated and shot at Fuzzell, according to the affidavit. Fuzzell’s car came to a rest against a pillar, court records state.
Based on what the shooters said in the video, an investigator determined the motive appeared to be a robbery, according to the affidavit.
Both Phillips and Caldwell fired weapons, but ballistics evidence showed Phillips didn’t fire the fatal shots, prosecutors alleged previously.
Caldwell, Rondo, Phillips and Sparks met up before the robbery with plans that they “were to split the proceeds from the planned robbery,” the affidavit states. They “discussed robbing someone so they could smoke and drink,” according to the affidavit.
Fuzzell’s mother Keshie Young previously told the Post-Tribune he was her second oldest, with three sisters and was the “man of the house,” she said. He was funny, always the life of the party. He loved his family and was protective over his sisters.
She thanked Gary Police for not allowing his death to become a “cold case.”
