A Merrillville man was sentenced Friday to 83 years in his ex-girlfriend’s death.
A jury convicted Dennis Jelks, 60, in December of murder and a gun enhancement in the January 2021 death of Angela Carrier, 37, of Crown Point.
Carrier went with relatives on Jan. 26, 2021, to the Merrillville Menards to get her Social Security mail from Jelks after a breakup. Once there, Jelks claimed he didn’t have it. He convinced Carrier to leave with him around 1:35 p.m., and she was never seen alive again.
Her body was found Jan. 30 near a tree in Gary’s Gleason Park.
Jelks said he would appeal.
At trial, defense lawyer Michael Lambert wrote in court filings that prosecutors had “no direct evidence” or “physical evidence” tying Jelks to her death. They “created a tale” to fit “their narrative,” he wrote.
Carrier struggled with drugs, Lambert wrote, citing her mother’s testimony, and would “go away for extended periods of time.” Her family said she would always call when she disappeared, prosecutors said.
In person, or in letters, a half-dozen of Carrier’s relatives spoke in court Friday of their lasting grief.
Her son Caleb Carrier said he was 16 when his “best friend” was killed – “an age when you still need your mom.” His mother was an artist who “lit up” the room, someone who made “life feel bigger and better.”
She was a “real person, who mattered,” Carrier’s cousin Rhiannon Hubinger said.
She called Jelks a “coward” who “left her out in the cold during a snowstorm for other people to find.”
To add insult to injury, Jelks pretended like he was looking for her, she said.
Another cousin, Taylor Stern, said she and Carrier grew up together playing at their grandmother’s home. She read a letter from Rose Jones, Carrier’s mother, who was in court, saying Jelks killed her only child.
“I loved her every day of her life,” Jones wrote. “She had a beautiful spirit and a strong presence.”
After Carrier disappeared, her stepfather Shannon Smith recorded a call he made to Jelks, accusing the other man of having something to do with it. Jelks denied it.
On Friday, Smith went to the stand and briefly smiled, then said he had nothing else to say.
“Remember that smile,” he told Jelks on the way back to his seat.
In a letter, Carrier’s daughter Shianne wrote her mother was “constantly drawing and painting.”
Jelks called her repeatedly after her mother disappeared.
“I never lost hope,” she wrote, “but now I question why I ever had hope.”
Her mother died five months before Shianne graduated from college and had her shoes picked out to wear to her daughter’s commencement ceremony. She was “chasing the life” Carrier wanted for her.
“He took our future with her,” Shianne wrote.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Bruno said Jelks had 29 police contacts. He signed a plea deal in another domestic violence case involving Carrier three weeks before her death.
It was “no secret” they had a roughly decade-long “tumultuous relationship,” but that didn’t justify killing her, he argued.
Jelks used the “ruse” of her mail to “get Ms. Carrier alone” and executed her in Gleason Park, Bruno said, leaving her for dead. Then, he pretended to her family like he had an interest in finding her.
The prosecutor argued Jelks’ police cooperation was a ploy to learn what investigators had on him. Getting his “version out” while slandering Carrier backfired, the prosecutor said.
Jelks told investigators after leaving Menards, he went with her to buy marijuana from “Tone” near 42nd Avenue and Jackson Street. Two car doors opened, and Carrier got into a black car that took off.
He fell, dropped his keys and lost track of the other car, he said. He called 911, records show. Det. Nick Wardrip discounted his story, writing that it wasn’t backed up by evidence.
In court, Bruno asked for 75 years.
Lambert argued Jelks’ criminal history was “non-violent.”
Prosecutors only had a “theory” and an “interpretation of the evidence.” He asked for a minimum sentence capped at 50 years.
Jelks maintained his innocence.
“I didn’t hurt no one,” he said. “I care for that lady.”
Cappas sentenced Jelks, telling Carrier’s family “no magic number” would erase their pain.
At the hearing’s end, Jelks agreed to legally admit his arrest in Carrier’s death, so he could get time served for violating probation in a previous cocaine dealing case.
mcolias@post-trib.com
