A jury trial got underway this week in Indianapolis for Tevis Walker, the 34-year-old maintenance worker accused of raping and killing 15-year-old Janiya Carr, whose body was found in a wooded area behind the apartment complex where they both lived in 2023. Walker faces two counts of murder, two counts of rape, and three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, and could be sentenced to more than 250 years in prison if convicted.
The case, as reported by WTHR, centers on surveillance footage prosecutors say ties Walker directly to Carr's disappearance and death. Deputy Prosecutor Abigail Bohn told jurors the security video will be central to proving the state's case, alleging it shows Walker picking Carr up the night she vanished and later driving into the wooded area where her body would be discovered. Carr was three weeks shy of her 16th birthday when she died.
Walker's attorneys, meanwhile, urged jurors to focus on the evidence rather than emotion. Defense attorney Lucy Margaret Frick asked jurors to weigh only whether the evidence shows Walker committed the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, according to the station's report. Closing arguments are expected Wednesday.
How Investigators Say the Night Unfolded
According to court documents cited by WTHR, surveillance video allegedly showed Carr walking to a black 2018 Kia Optima on October 28, 2023, speaking with the driver, and getting into the passenger seat before the car drove away. That Kia is registered to Walker, who lived and worked as a maintenance man at Carriage House East Apartments — the same building behind which Carr's body would later be found.
Investigators claim the footage also appeared to show a muzzle flash near the top of the rear passenger window, and that Walker then drove into the grass behind his building at around 5:20 a.m. that same morning. Surveillance video allegedly showed the car's lights turning off and movement inside the vehicle, followed by Walker walking from the car to a dumpster twice and appearing to put something in the trunk. Police claim he then removed something from the trunk and walked to the wooded location where Carr's body was later found, remaining visible in that area for roughly 11 minutes, per the same account.
Carr had been reported missing by her family over Halloween weekend in 2023 and had been listed in Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department records as a runaway starting October 28 — four calendar days before her body was found on November 1, with three full days in between, according to WIBC. A woman walking her dog near Aristocrat North Drive at Carriage House East noticed what appeared to be a body around noon on November 1, 2023, and reported it to the Indianapolis Fire Department, court documents state. Homicide detectives determined Carr had been shot, and a probable cause affidavit reported by WIBC states the Marion County Coroner's Office found she died from a gunshot wound to her right cheek and trauma to the back of her head, with blood and drag marks found near her body.
A Rejected Plea and a Warning From Prosecutors
Walker was originally set to plead guilty in July 2026 to murder and sexual misconduct with a minor as a Level 2 felony, with Carr's family and IMPD detectives prepared to testify during a sentencing hearing. Instead, he pulled out of that agreement during the July hearing. During that change-of-plea hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Abigail Bohn warned Walker directly that the offer was, in her words, “the lowest they will ever be” before he rejected it and requested a jury trial, according to WTHR.
That decision means prosecutors are now also pursuing habitual offender and firearm enhancements, which could add substantially more time to any sentence if Walker is convicted. Any sentence would depend on the charges and enhancements proved at trial.
Background Checks and an Out-of-State Warrant Trail
Walker was originally charged with rape, murder, and sexual misconduct with a minor after he was stopped by officers near 86th Street and Shadeland Avenue, where IMPD found he had outstanding arrest warrants from Florida for narcotics and a handgun offense, an unknown warrant from Georgia, and, as IMPD stated at the time of his arrest, an additional outstanding warrant out of Alabama. According to court documents, Walker told police he had picked up a woman to drive her several miles east to buy an iPad, and that when the seller never showed up, he drove her back.
Management company Gene B. Glick Company said following Walker's November 2023 arrest that he had been hired as a maintenance worker in June 2023 after passing state and national background checks, per a statement reported at the time. Carriage House East is described by the Glick Housing Foundation as its largest affordable apartment community, providing housing on Indianapolis's far east side.
Prosecutors say Walker picked up Carr, raped and killed her, and dumped her body — allegations his defense has pushed back against as the trial proceeds. During his initial court appearance in November 2023, Walker told Marion County Judge James Osborn that he had three minor children, a moment that triggered an emotional reaction in the courtroom from Carr's mother, as previously reported by WTHR.
A Student Remembered Amid a Citywide Toll
Before her death, Carr was a student at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis who had recently attended her school's homecoming dance, according to family accounts shared after her body was found. The Indianapolis Recorder reported in November 2023 that Carr was among at least 19 minors shot and killed in the city that year, a statistic that underscored the scale of youth gun violence in Indianapolis at the time.
The trial is expected to conclude with closing arguments on Wednesday, leaving a jury to decide whether the surveillance footage, forensic findings, and other evidence prosecutors have laid out are enough to convict Walker on all counts.
