INDIANAPOLIS — On Oct. 21, a new trial began for Raymond Childs III, who is charged with murdering most of his family in 2021.
On July 23, a judge declared a mistrial in Childs' murder trial.
The Marion County Prosecutor's Office confirmed this was declared after something that was said during witness testimony.
Childs faces six murder charges in connection with the crime carried out at an east Indianapolis home.
Childs is accused of shooting everyone in the house in the early morning hours of Jan. 24, 2021, in the 3500 block of Adams Street, near East 34th Street and North Sherman Drive.
Prosecutors said Childs started upstairs and finished in the basement, killing his parents, Raymond and Kizzie Childs; his 13-year-old sister, Rita; his 18-year-old brother, Elijah; his brother's girlfriend, Kiara Hawkins; and her baby boy, who was just days away from being delivered.
Childs faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted.
"To see him behind bars for the rest of his life, that would be justice served for me," said Roniqua Hawkins, Kiara's mother.
Another brother, who was 15 at the time, allegedly witnessed the shootings and ran out of the house before being shot twice. He survived.
"Police asked him, 'Xavier, who shot you?' And while he lay in the hospital recovering from his wounds, he said, 'My brother, Raymond Ronald Lee Childs III,'" the prosecutor said.
But the defense told the jury that Childs was not there, that two guns were used and the evidence points to two shooters.
"We believe that the evidence will show that we are here today based on a misidentification and a misguided investigation," defense attorney Courtney Benson-Kooy said.