Trial underway for Indy man accused of killing 6 people

INDIANAPOLIS — Raymond Childs III took his father’s car without permission on a Saturday night, something family members say would never have been allowed. When he returned after midnight, Raymond Childs II promised disciplinary action would be taken later.

T-Ana King, her 17-year-old brother’s sister, told the jury in Childs’ murder trial that she understood the warning to mean her father would wait until his son was asleep before imposing punishment.

Prosecutors told the jury that the young Childs would not wait to hear what his sentence would be.

Childs is charged with six counts of murder in the deaths of his parents, Kezzie and Raymond Childs II, his brother Elijah, 18, Elijah’s girlfriend Kiara Hawkins, 19, her nearly full-term baby, and his sister Rita, 13, plus one count of attempted murder and one weapons charge.

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Daniel Cicchini said Childs planned to kill everyone in the house but failed. Instead, he stalked and wounded his 15-year-old brother, Xavier. Xavier literally offered him his last dollar to spare his life, promising not to tell anyone what he saw.

Cicchini told the jury that Xavier saw his older brother stalking his parents in their basement bedroom of the family home in the 3500 block of North Adams Street early on the morning of Jan. 24, 2021, after he shot his first victims upstairs.

“Xavier watched the suspect walk down the stairs, recognized him, knew it was his brother, saw his face and hid after hearing the shots upstairs,” Cicchini said. “He hid in the nearby laundry room and listened as a brief struggle ensued before his brother shot their parents. He heard his father’s last words, ‘I love you, Raymond.'”

Xavier ran off, pursued by Raymond III, prosecutors said, offering his brother $44 not to kill him and blood-soaked currency that traced the chase route to nearby East 36^e Street where minutes later the younger teen was found shot twice and bleeding on a neighbor’s porch.

IMPD Officer Andrew Guzman, one of the first officers on the scene, testified that Xavier told him, “He shot them all,” and when Guzman asked who, the injured child said, “Raymond Childs.”

Jurors heard recordings of 911 calls, including one witness who testified he saw two men running away in a yellow GMC Hummer.

Another witness stated that she saw the Childs family’s SUV drive away from the scene.

Jurors also saw IMPD body camera footage of the first officers who searched the Childs’ home and heard descriptions of the officers: “We got five,” and “There’s two more down here,” and “There’s a gun over there.”

A forensic investigator said he found three firearms and a scale in the home, which are typically used in the sale of narcotics.

An uncle, James Allen, testified that Raymond III returned to the scene of the crime several hours after the murder and was very upset, so much so that Allen ordered his nephew to wait in a relative’s pickup truck.

Raymond III was later arrested at a relative’s house in Plainfield, when police impounded the family vehicle and found one of the murder weapons with fingerprints wiped off it.

Cicchini told FOX59/CBS4 he expects to have Xavier testify on Wednesday, but the defense is already arguing that the younger brother could not have seen what he claimed to have seen that morning in the dark basement.

“We believe the evidence will show that we’re here today based on a false identification and a misleading investigation,” defense attorney Courtney Ann Benson-Kooy told jurors in her opening statement. “But I want you to pay attention to what Xavier said right after the shooting, that he wasn’t sure his brother was the shooter and he couldn’t say for sure that he saw his brother with a gun. He also used the word ‘they’ to refer to the shooters. He was in the basement when his mother and father were shot, but you’re going to see the evidence, you’re going to see photographs, diagrams, body camera footage, and you can make your own decision as to whether someone can make an identification based on where Xavier was, his line of sight, how dark it was in that basement.”

Cicchini countered that Xavier identified the seized firearm as the murder weapon, and: “Xavier looked his brother straight in the eye, who were standing just a few feet apart, and he asked him not to kill him.”

According to prosecutors, Raymond III carelessly ignored this request.

“He looked into his brother’s face and said nothing. He raised his gun, shot him in the leg, knocking Xavier down, shot him a second time and left him for dead and he left.”