INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A jail inmate has linked murder defendant James Stewart to an Indianapolis address where seven family members were killed in 2006, observers said.
Inmate Michael Litel, who occupied a cell adjacent to Stewart for months, told Marion Superior Court jurors Tuesday Stewart began to confide in him and eventually told him main triggerman Desmond Turner forced him to shoot one of three children slain that day, The Indianapolis Star reported Wednesday.
Litel said Stewart told him Turner forced him to kill the child to involve him more deeply in the incident, which allegedly started out as a robbery.
"If everything had gone according to plan, it was just supposed to be a simple robbery where they got the drugs and money and then got out," Litel, who is serving 16 years for arson, quoted Stewart as saying. He alleged that Stewart admitted some of the adults in the house were forced to their knees and then shot, the Star reported.
The Star said Turner, 31, has already drawn a life sentence plus 88 years after being convicted of the slayings at a separate trial in October.
