Trial underway for Indy man accused of killing 6 people

INDIANAPOLIS — Raymond Childs III had taken his father’s car without authorization on a Saturday night, something family members said would never be allowed, and when he returned after midnight, Raymond Childs II promised discipline would be meted out later.

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

Prosecutors told the jury that the younger Childs wasn’t going to wait to find out what his punishment would be.

Childs faces six murder charges for the killings of his parents, Kezzie and Raymond Childs, II, his brother Elijah, 18, Elijah’s girlfriend Kiara Hawkins, 19, and her near-term baby and his sister Rita, 13, plus one count of attempted murder and a misdemeanor gun charge.

In his opening statement, Deputy Prosecutor Daniel Cicchini said Childs set out to kill everyone in the house, but he failed, instead, chasing down and wounding his 15-year-old brother Xavier who offered him literally his last dollar to spare his life with the promise that he wouldn’t tell what he saw.

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

”Xavier watched as the defendant walked down the stair, recognized him, knew it was his brother, saw his face and he hid having heard the gunshots upstairs first,” said Cicchini. ”He hid in the nearby laundry room and listened as there was a brief struggle before his brother shot their parents to death. He heard his father’s last words, ‘I love you, Raymond.’”

Xavier lit out, chased by Raymond III, said prosecutors, offering his brother $44 to not kill him, blood-soaked currency tracing the path of the pursuit to nearby East 36 ^th Street where minutes later the younger teen was found shot twice and bleeding out on a neighbor’s porch.

IMPD Patrolman 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 wounded child said, “Raymond Childs.”

Jurors heard tapes of 911 calls, including a witness who said he watched two men run from the scene and leave in a yellow GMC Hummer.

Another witness testified that she saw a Childs family SUV speed away from the scene.

Jurors also saw IMPD Body Worn Camera video of the first officers to search the Childs home and heard descriptions, “We got five,” and, “There’s two more down here, “ and, “There’s a gun there.”

A forensic investigator testified that he discovered three guns and scales typically used in narcotics sales in the house.

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

Raymond III was later arrested at a relative’s house in Plainfield as police seized the family vehicle and discovered one of the murder weapons that had been wiped of fingerprints.

Cicchini told FOX59/CBS4 that he expects to call Xavier to the stand Wednesday, but the defense is already arguing the younger brother couldn’t have seen what he claimed to have witnessed in the darkened basement that morning.

”We believe that the evidence will show we are here today based on a misidentification and a misguided 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 perpetrator and he couldn’t say for sure he saw his brother with a gun. He also used the word ‘they’ to reference the shooters. He was in the basement when his dad and mom were shot but you’re going to see evidence, you’re gonna see pictures, diagrams, body cam footage and you can make your own decision whether based on where Xavier was, his line of sight and how dark it was in that basement if anyone could make an identification.”

Cicchini countered that Xavier identified the seized firearm as the murder weapon, and, ”Xavier looked at his brother face-to-face mere feet away from one another and he asked him not to kill him.”

Prosecutors said Raymond III coldly ignored that plea.

”He looked in his brother’s face and said nothing. He raised his gun, shot him in the leg, causing Xavier to fall, then he shot him a second time and left him for dead and he left.”

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