Docs: Man in bloody clothes turns himself in after girlfriend found shot near City-County Building
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Ladriel Chapman went to the Marion County jail, approached a Sheriff’s Department captain and said, “I need to turn myself in and I need to speak to a detective.”
The captain responded, “I noticed blood on your clothes. Would that be a homicide detective you need to speak to?”
“Yes,” Chapman said.
In the hours to come, the 23-year-old man described what led to the fatal shooting of the girlfriend he lived with and the mother of his two children, 21-year-old Doneasha Galbreath.
Officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department were called about 10:40 a.m. Saturday to a report of an unresponsive person inside a sport utility vehicle near the City-County Building in the 200 block of East Market Street. At least five bullets had entered her body, an autopsy later determined.
Detectives later learned Galbreath was shot at West 21st Street and Interstate 65. That’s about 2 miles northwest of where police found Galbreath with blood on her head and slumped over in the front passenger seat of a red 2007 Dodge Nitro, its radio playing loud music over the hum of the SUV’s engine.
Police found two spent cartridge casings on the driver’s seat of the SUV. Later, the crime lab found four more cartridge casings after Galbreath was removed from the Nitro. The lab techs also found a Glock 17 pistol with a live round in the chamber and six live rounds in the magazine.
Later in the Sheriff’s Department, Chapman explained he and Galbreath left their west-side apartment — he drove her red SUV — and went to the parking lot of the Circle K gas station at West 46th Street and Lafayette Road.
At the gas station, Chapman and Gilbreath sat in the SUV for about 10 minutes while she texted and they argued about an incident involving his mother.
“After leaving the Circle K, Chapman got onto Interstate 65 and headed south,” the documents say. “Galbreath became mad because Chapman was not responding to her ranting. Chapman states Galbreath then pulled her purse between her legs and pulled out a black gun. She held the gun with two hands. Chapman asked Galbreath ‘what are you going to do with that gun?’ Galbreath responded, ‘Whatever I want to.’ Chapman said Galbreath waved the gun at him. A little while later as Chapman was exiting off Interstate 65 at 21st Street, Galbreath waved the gun at Chapman again and this time he grabbed it and the gun fired. Chapman said Galbreath just fell over the console after he fired the gun at her.”
Chapman said he drove to “the only building he knew,” the City-County Building. After a few minutes, he made his way to the nearby IndyGo transit station and took a bus going east, getting off at the Circle K at East 21st Street and Shadeland Avenue.
Chapman made two 911 calls.
After the first call using a customer’s cellphone at the Circle K, an IMPD officer arrived about 11:45 a.m. The officer said Chapman indicated he’d been assaulted by two males and needed a ride downtown. Chapman said, according to court documents, he was told “he needed to find his own way downtown.”
In the second call about 15 minutes later, from another gas station, he told the same IMPD officer that he’d assaulted his girlfriend but did not give an exact location. The officer checked and found no active assault cases.
After talking with the officer, Chapman said, he got back on an IndyGo bus and returned downtown. Then, he turned himself in at the jail.
Chapman was arrested.
Police later Saturday found their children, a 1-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, alone in their apartment. The dead bolt on the door was unlocked, but the children were unharmed and healthy.
Chapman remained in the Marion County jail on Wednesday night.
On Thursday morning in Marion Superior Court, Criminal Division 20, he faces charges of murder and carrying a handgun without a license, and two counts of neglect of a dependent.
