INDIANAPOLIS — Two men convicted of shooting four people to death after a robbery will spend the next 220 years in prison, the Marion County Prosecutor's Office said Friday.
Cameron and Desmond Banks were convicted last March on four counts of murder for the 2020 shooting deaths of Braxton Ford, Kimari Hunt, Jalen Roberts and Marcel Wills.
The quadruple shooting happened on Feb. 5, 2020, at the 4100 block of Shady Oak Drive, just southeast of 42nd Street & Mitthoeffer Road, around 10:25 p.m.
Officers found the bodies of four victims inside an apartment and said that they had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
Detectives said the apartment appeared to be ransacked and also had evidence of a safe that had been opened and emptied.
The murders devastated a close-knit east side community. Jalen Roberts and Marcel Wills were cousins. Kimari Hunt had dreams of becoming a teacher.
"She was beautiful and she was just beautiful inside and out and she was just a humble person and she loved everybody,” her aunt Dawn McDade told 13News shortly after the shootings. “I can’t believe our Kimari, our stink, our ‘Pyra’, I can’t believe she is gone. I cannot believe it.”'
As detectives looked into who may have been responsible for the death of four young people back in 2020, they ran up against a 'code of silence' they thought could be preventing people who knew something about the crimes to come forward.
“The streets know who did it,” said Pastor James Jackson, who is a longtime faith leader at Fervent Prayer Church, in a plea for answers. “There are people at this moment who know what happened. If you're trying to protect the shooter, it's not thing to do."
Pastor Kenneth Sullivan Jr. of New Direction Church also called on potential suspects to come forward.
“That's what needs to be broken, the code of silence,” said Sullivan. “We are just coming on the heels of who says it's not the words of our enemies we will remember, it's the silence of our friends. If you are a friend of any of these victims you need to do the right thing and share what you know."
In the end, it was surveillance footage that led detectives to four suspects: Cameron Banks, Desmond Banks, Lasean Watkins and Rodriece Anderson. The video reportedly showed three suspects who entered the residence, then fled to a nearby vehicle shortly after the shooting.
Investigators used that footage to track the suspect vehicle to Rodreice Anderson, who eventually admitted that he drove the three other suspects to the residence after forming a plan to rob it.
Anderson pleaded guilty to four counts of robbery resulting in serious bodily injuring on Oct. 22, 2022, and cooperated with the prosecutor's investigation as part of his guilty plea. His sentencing hearing will take place Monday, April 3 at 1 p.m.
Meanwhile, Cameron and Desmond Banks were convicted of multiple charges that include robbery and felony murder, along with suspect Lasean Watkins after a five-day trial that wrapped up in March 2023.
Suspect Lasean Watkins was also sentenced at that same time, but was appointed new counsel. His hearing was reset for April 28.