BARGERSVILLE, Ind. — The mother of the youngest victim of a Christmas Eve triple shooting hopes that talking about her 17-year-old son will bring a break in the investigation.
Bargersville Police have made no arrests more than a month after two young men were shot and killed and a third was wounded outside the Circle K Shell station on State Road 144 near State Road 37.
Michelle Quinn says her son, Tony Cristobal, was not in school but working and living with his girlfriend's family. Quinn says Cristobal checked in with his mom every night on the phone.
"I do still send him messages on there,” said Quinn. “Just, ‘Hey! I love you. I miss you.’ If I'm having a bad day, I'll send him a big, long one."
The messages bring no replies after Cristobal was shot and killed in a parking lot around 5:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Quinn says her son was shot three times in the head. 20-year-old Ethan Bell of Indianapolis also died. Cristobal’s 18-year-old friend Devon McHugh of Martinsville was shot but survived.
Quinn says her son had borrowed a neighbor’s car and was out celebrating McHugh’s birthday. She doesn’t know why the friends were at the gas station.
"It really doesn't matter at the end of the day why anyone was there,” said Quinn. “What matters is what happened in the end. And in the end, two very young individuals lost their lives way too early in life, and another is not only physically, but mentally scarred for the rest of his life."
Four days after Cristobal's death, Tony's girlfriend, Justice Smith, gave birth to their daughter, Samara.
"She's adorable, precious, perfect in every way,” said Quinn. “Looks just like her dad. It helps at times. Other times, it makes it harder because I know he's not going to be here.”
Wednesday would have been Cristobal’s 18th birthday.
“I have to go the rest of my life without him,” said Quinn. “He has to not be here for his daughter's first everything. Never gets to be around her, never got to physically hold her. She's, other than seeing pictures of her dad, never going to know who her dad really was."
Police say the gas station had no outside working video cameras, but detectives believe they are looking for two or three people who left the shooting scene in an unidentified vehicle.
Police called 18-year-old Levi Camplin a person of interest, but he has not provided any information about the incident.
Police are also looking for a person caught on video inside the gas station at about the time of the crime, wearing a black hoodie with a unique logo on the front and back. They say the person is not a suspect, but police believe that person was likely a witness to the shooting.
Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact Detective Zach Elliott at (317) 714-4652 or Detective Stephen Byerly at (317) 557-1402.