A 68-year-old homeowner in Indiana has been charged with murder for fatally shooting a man outside his home, initially telling cops that the victim attacked him with a sword, according to police officials.
What actually happened, according to Indiana State Police detectives, was that New Albany sexagenarian Kevin Campbell got spooked by the approaching man — 41-year-old Christopher Proctor, whom he allegedly had a relationship with — and Campbell was attempting to scare him away with a warning shot from a “small caliber rifle” that he owned.
“He wanted to scare him,” ISP Master Trooper Phillip Hensley told local Fox affiliate WDRB on Monday. “He wanted this to be a warning shot, and his warning shot wasn’t exactly a warning shot.”
First responders initially believed Proctor’s death had been reported as a cardiac arrest, and Proctor was said to have died in Campbell’s front yard, according to Hensley. It wasn’t until officers arrived and began speaking with Campbell that they learned of what allegedly happened — or at least what he was claiming at first.
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“Campbell says [to officers], ‘No, no I shot him,’ and they raised his shirt and there was a bullet hole,” Hensley told WDRB. “There was a lot of remorse, a lot of, I’m sure, certainly panic. He wanted to scare him. He wanted this to be a warning shot, and his warning shot wasn’t exactly a warning shot.”
Campbell told detectives that Proctor had knocked on his bedroom window and then went around to the front of his home.
“Campbell observed [Proctor] standing outside, holding a sword,” ISP officials said in their first press release outlining the incident, which was posted on Facebook Sunday.
Detectives initially believed that Proctor had approached the doorway toward Campbell “with sword in hand, at which point Campbell fired a single shot,” according to the release. Proctor was later pronounced dead at the scene.
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WDRB reported that Campbell had confessed to being in a “relationship” with Proctor for nearly a year, and that things had ended badly between them. It allegedly took Campbell two hours before he called the New Albany Police Department after Proctor’s death, according to officials. Cops say he used this time to try and dispose of Proctor’s body using carpet and a trash can.
On Monday, ISP officials made a follow-up post detailing how murder charges were filed after law enforcement learned that Proctor was apparently unarmed. It’s unclear whether his story of attempting to fire a warning shot was true or not, but cops have confirmed that Proctor was not attacking Campbell with a sword.
Campbell was charged initially with obstruction of justice before getting hit with murder, manslaughter and criminal recklessness with a firearm charges on Monday. He is being held at the Floyd County Jail.
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