DANVILLE, Ind. (WTHR) - It was for all practical purposes a cold case.
Police knew how 20-year-old Kaylyn Whitaker died but just couldn't put all the evidence together to file charges in the case.
Now, four years after she died, they have the man who pulled the trigger in custody. Connor Warren Scott, 24, turned himself in to Danville Police Sunday night.
Whitaker died on Halloween night in 2014 under suspicious circumstances in Martinsville, Illinois. The case sparked interest in Indiana, because she was originally from the Terre Haute area. Then Sunday night the case was solved when a man walked through the door at the Danville Police Department and said he did it.
Scott has only lived in Danville for six months. No one was at his residence Monday afternoon.
Eyewitness News investigators learned police in Danville confiscated Scott's firearms on February 6 after his current girlfriend feared he was suicidal. A hearing was scheduled for March 7 to determine if they could be returned to him.
The firearms taken from Scott were done so under the "Jake Laird Law," known nationally as the "Red Flag Law" by which an officer can seize firearms from mentally unstable or dangerous people. That includes risk of personal injury or to another person.
Whitaker was with Scott when she died at his home back in 2014. At first, investigators said it was suicide, but that was later changed to homicide - but Scott was never charged.
Her parents had grown frustrated over the years with the lack of progress in the case and said so.
"We deserve closure. We deserve peace. This is a homicide case and it has been since 2015 and I am angry. Very angry," Whitaker's mother Leslie Roberts once complained.
The family had Kaylyn's death certificate that states homicide was her manner of death
Illinois Appellate Prosecutor Ed Parkinson has been in charge of the case, and reviewed evidence in the case file.
In a written review of Kaylyn's case Parkinson said, "It is my opinion that Kaylyn could not have shot herself in the location where the bullet entered her skull. The amended finding as a cause of death as a homicide best fits the situation in this case."
Parkinson said Connor Scott has been corporative, but stopped short of calling him a suspect in WTWO-TV's report in December 2018. "I'm not calling him a suspect because we haven't filed any charges. He was her fiancé, boyfriend, together at the time and they were together at the time of her death," Ed Parkinson said. "It is true, from what we can tell that she did die gunshot wound in the company of that person."
"She was a good girl, good person, very kind, very loving.” Leslie Roberts told WTWO.
Now that has all changed. Illinois State Police made the trip to Danville to meet with Scott.
Whitaker is remembered as a good girl who loved her family and loved life. At this time, there is no word on why Scott may have wanted to kill his fiance. That will now be up to authorities in Illinois to sort out.
It also remains unknown why Scott may have decided to admit to the crime now, some four-and-a-half years after the fact.
Scott is currently being held at the Hendricks County Jail awaiting extradition.