As Anthony Triplett was set to get out of prison for killing a 14-year-old boy, charges were unsealed July 21 for a different criminal case for Diego Serna’s Nov. 2, 2017 death in Gary’s Miller section.
Triplett, 27, of Gary, is the third man charged in Serna’s killing. The case has been delayed for years.
He has pleaded not guilty. His next hearing is Sept. 11.
Against his better instincts, a 20-year-old man went to a Gary apartment complex on Nov. 2, 2017, to sell 1.5 ounces of marijuana to Augustus “Gus” Johnson, his then-Hammond Walmart co-worker, charges allege. It was a setup.
The man ended up seriously wounded and his friend, Serna, 16, of Hammond, was killed.
Gary Police responded to the Marquette Apartments, 405 South Huntington St. They found Serna, who appeared lifeless, on his stomach. The marijuana dealer survived.
Johnson, now 48, is awaiting sentencing after signing a plea deal in 2021. At various points, prosecutors filed to squash the deal, then go forward with it.
He told police that he, another Walmart co-worker, Triplett, talked about robbing the dealer months earlier. That evening, they picked up co-defendant Marcell Ellison in East Chicago.
At the Gary apartments, as the marijuana dealer approached Johnson’s car, Triplett came up behind him and fired four shots, charges state. Ellison also fired shots toward the man. Johnson told police he was the getaway driver.
Ellison’s trial is set in November.
The case was further complicated after the original detective got indicted in a federal child porn case. It has since been reassigned to a different investigator.
Former Gary Police Det. James Bond, 52, of Crown Point, a former deputy chief, commander and homicide supervisor, was indicted in September 2024 after soliciting an explicit video from a 17-year-old boy working as a city intern in the police department last summer. Investigators found a latent cached screenshot on his iPhone.
Triplett was sentenced in December 2021 for killing 14-year-old Arion Lilly, who was shot in the back after leaving a barber shop, lawyers said. Triplett said he was fleeing another car shooting at him and didn’t mean to hit the boy.
