Hunt continues in Hovey St. killings
Andrea Yarrell with her four-month-old daughter Charlii Yarrell
Gina Hunt with her 23-month old son Jordan Hunt
Police this morning had not yet identified any suspects in the slayings of two children and their mothers at a Near-Northside home late Monday.
Dozens of investigators continue to search for clues and interview potential witnesses as they hunt for the people who killed Jordan Hunt, 23 months, Charlii Yarrell, 4 months, and their mothers, Gina Hunt, 24, and Andrea Yarrell, 24.
On Tuesday, Sheriff Frank Anderson asked the public to help police find the killers and vowed to track them down “like dogs.”
“We’re not going to stop until we find you and put you in a cage where you belong,” Anderson said.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Spokesman Sgt. Matthew Mount said detectives from the homicide, aggravated assault and narcotics units have been working around-the-clock on the case.
“We have some promising leads, but no suspects yet,” Mount said.
More officers and investigators have been brought in from various other divisions within the department, as well as several agents with the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Mount said.
North District officers have been operating out of a mobile command post in the neighborhood since Tuesday, Mount said.
An armed break-in in September at the Near-Northside house where two women and two young children were gunned down Monday held eerie similarities to the slayings.
No arrests were made after Gina Hunt told police two armed men broke into the home in the 3200 block of Hovey Street on Sept. 27 and threatened to shoot her, the baby she was holding and another woman and child. The men left without harming the four.
Monday night, Hunt, 24, was shot multiple times and killed while holding her 23-month-old son, Jordan Hunt, and Andrea Yarrell, 24, was also killed while holding her daughter, Charlii Yarrell, 4 months. Charlii was pronounced dead at a hospital, the others at the home.
More than 80 investigators have been working to find the killers, said police, who put a mobile command center in the area.
Lesley Yarrell, Andrea Yarrell’s father, couldn’t contain his grief Tuesday as family and friends flocked to his parents’ home on North LaSalle Street.
Andrea Yarrell with her four-month-old daughter Charlii Yarrell, in a submitted family photo.
“My heart is gone. Those were my babies,” he said, tears rolling. Yarrell said he was proud of his daughter, who graduated from Perry Meridian High School and worked for the state Department of Child Services as a clerk before having Charlii. But he said he was not happy about some of the people she associated with.
He said Charlii’s father was shot last fall, and Andrea “had to run for her life.” It was after that, Yarrell said, that he rented a home for her near his parents’.
“I said, ‘OK, I’ll put you up in a safe place,’.” he said. “That baby was my pride and joy. I said I would take care of her and now she’s gone. Both of them are gone.”
Gina Hunt has two other children, who were not in the house during the shootings. Police said they are safe but declined to say who was caring for them.
Lesley Yarrell said he was displeased when Hunt recently asked Andrea to stay with her at the Hovey Street home, but he did not elaborate on his concerns.
“I went there Sunday and got my younger daughter. I told her I better not catch her there again,” he said. “But Andrea was an adult, and I couldn’t do that with her.”
Gina Hunt with her 23-month old son Jordan Hunt, in a submitted family photo.
Polly Anderson, who worked with Andrea Yarrell at DCS, called her “a very nice, caring, friendly and fun person.” Andrea had stopped by last week to let co-workers see her daughter.
Sherrill Essett, another former co-worker, said Yarrell was a good worker.
“Everybody at our job is torn up about this,” she said. “She was a beautiful person.”
Police had not identified suspects by late Tuesday. Sheriff Frank Anderson asked the public to help police find the killers and vowed to track them down “like dogs.”
“We’re not going to stop until we find you and put you in a cage where you belong,” Anderson said. “There’s a special place in hell for you, and we’re going to see that you get there.”
A 911 call Monday night sent police to the wrong address, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Sgt. Matthew Mount said. They found the correct house, across the street, and went in through a broken window, he said.
Police were investigating reports that two men were seen running from the area.
Detectives found two handguns outside near the house, Mount said. Inside, officers found a safe, about a pound of suspected marijuana, an electronic scale, ammunition and three long guns, according to a police report.
Mayor Greg Ballard renewed his call to gain control of the crime problem and beef up community policing.
“Tragedies like this remind us that where we are as a city is nowhere close to where we need to be,” Ballard said. “When a child can be shot while lying in his or her mother’s arms, we must all decide no matter what our differences are as a community, that we can join together and make our streets safe for our children.”
IMPD Chief Michael Spears said detectives have not determined whether the reported September break-in and armed robbery at the house had any connection to Monday’s killings.
“I can’t say with any certainty that it’s related,” Spears said. “It’s certainly very suspicious.”
On Sept. 27, two men kicked in a door at the house and held Hunt, another woman and two children at gunpoint, a police report said.
“(Hunt) was pleading for the life of everyone in the house,” officer Noreen Cooper wrote in the report. The suspects reportedly took Hunt’s cell phone and the house phone and fled, according to the report.
Police had been called to the home at other times. In August, burglars stole $5,000 worth of sweat suits, jewelry worth $250, a $4,500 plasma TV and a $200 table, according to a report.
In November, Dana Davidson, 44, reported that her car’s window was busted out while parked outside the home.
Monday night, Andrea Yarrell was on the phone with her boyfriend, Gene Boyd, when the attackers came in, said Boyd’s mother, Annie Boyd. She said she called 911 after speaking to her son, who is at the Indianapolis Men’s Work Release Center, serving time in a drug case.
“He heard the shots,” said Boyd, 55. “He was on the phone. They were talking and she heard something at the door.”
Boyd said her son heard Yarrell waking Hunt before the connection cut off. He called back.
“He heard the shot, then heard Gina holler out: ‘Those are my babies!’ ” Annie Boyd said. “After that, the phone went dead again.”
A spokeswoman at the work release center said Gene Boyd was not granting interviews.
Annie Boyd said her son and Andrea Yarrell had been in an off-and-on relationship for about 10 years and had reconnected recently. He was not Charlii’s father, she said, but he loved the little girl. Boyd said she regarded Yarrell as a daughter.
“She just wanted to raise her daughter,” Boyd said. “Pretty little girl. She couldn’t wait to put a barrette in her hair.”
The suspects are “cruel,” Boyd said. “That’s the devil in somebody.”
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