Docs: 5 charged with armed robberies, car thefts, beatings, home invasion
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Five people, including three teens, have been charged with a string of crimes against the city’s Hispanic community.
Police have tied two adults and three juveniles to multiple armed robberies, beatings, and a home invasion on the city’s west side.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office has charged 22-year-old Ronald McGarr Jr. and 34-year-old Danielle Nicole Gutierrez Carachure in the case. Three unnamed juveniles have also been charged.
Court documents acquired by News 8 link the duo to several crimes committed against Hispanic victims throughout June.
McGarr was charged with a dozen felonies for burglary with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, robbery resulting in bodily injury, pointing a firearm, theft and auto theft. Carachure faces seventeen felonies and two misdemeanors for burglary with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, robbery resulting in bodily injury, theft, auto theft and fraud.
According to court documents, Carachure would lead a victim to a location where several people were waiting to assault and rob the victim. One said five masked men beat him with baseball bats before burning him with a blow torch. Another said he was pistol-whipped from behind. Two men were attacked while in their apartment. Another man said he was with his children at his taco truck when they were robbed at gunpoint.
Detectives with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department pieced it together with the help of translators and covert surveillance of the suspects.
Man beaten with bats, burned with blow torch
On June 3, police were called near 10th Street and Tibbs Avenue. The victim did not speak English and a firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department helped translate the victim’s statements.
The man said he had been picked up and “taken to a white house near 10th and Tibbs Avenue by a white female with blonde hair,” according to court documents.
In a later interview with Carachure, she told officers “a Hispanic male texted her stating that he knew her through his friend” and she picked him up, according to court documents.
The victim said he and the woman went into the home and into the living room. That’s when he was attacked by five masked men with baseball bats.
He said they beat him and strangled him with a towel. They then pulled out a blow torch and used it on him, burning his face and legs.
He said he was able to pull the mask off of one of the assailants, who bit him. One of the attackers pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the victim. He said he begged for his life before they dragged him outside of the home toward a detached garage.
He said he got free and ran to a car to ask for help. The car drove off, leaving him to run further down the street until he could find someone to dial 911.
Police say they could see burns on his tongue, face and leg. He also had swelling on his face and was bleeding from the mouth.
His wallet, house keys, cell phone, and cash were stolen in the ordeal.
Police spoke with him again on June 12, taking him back to the area of the crime to see if he could identify the house where he was beaten.
He identified a white house in the 3300 block of West 9th Street as the scene of the crime.
A further interview with him on June 16 led to him pointing out Carachure in a photo array, stating she was the woman who picked him up before he was attacked.
Man carjacked after giving woman a ride from bar
A second victim said he was pistol-whipped and his car stolen on June 5. The victim spoke to officers via a translator.
He said he was leaving a bar at 38th Street and Georgetown Road when a woman asked him for a ride. He described her as short with blonde hair.
She asked him to be dropped off at another bar near 10th Street and Tibbs Avenue.
Once there, they both started walking toward the bar when he was pistol-whipped from behind. He said two males stole his keys, cell phone, and shoes. He said he was able to get an employee of the bar to take him home.
He said he wasn’t sure if his car had been stolen after leaving it at the bar. Officers returned to the scene and were unable to find the car, believing it to be stolen.
IMPD then located the vehicle and began surveillance on the vehicle before recovering the vehicle near the 3300 block of West 9th Street and taking it to Auto Return on June 8.
The day after the robbery, he said he was alerted by Chase Bank to several transaction attempts, including at a Speedway gas station on the west side of Indianapolis.
An IMPD detective went to the gas station and reviewed surveillance video. According to court documents, he said Carachure and a juvenile male were spotted at the store in the same timeframe that the victim’s card was used.
Investigators believe Carachure and McGarr tried to use the card at an ATM before Carachure used the card to buy gas.
Armed group wearing masks break into apartment, hold victims at gunpoint
IMPD officers responded to an apartment near 34th Street and Moller Road late in the evening of June 11. A translator spoke to officers on behalf of the victims.
The two male victims said they were in their apartment when five people entered. They said four men were armed, three of them wearing masks. A woman who was with them was not wearing a mask.
The men said they were pistol-whipped and held at gunpoint before being robbed.
One of the victims said his car keys, a tablet and two phones were stolen. The other victim lost his wallet and phone, and the keys to his Jeep were taken.
According to court documents, the vehicles were not stolen at the time of the robbery, but IMPD officers began surveillance on the vehicles.
Officers watched on June 12 as the Jeep was stolen and taken 9th Street and Moreland Avenue, right by 3300 block of West 9th Street.
Police watched as the Jeep met up with another vehicle, a black Chrysler 200. The drivers of both vehicles matched descriptions given by victims of the robberies.
The vehicle was later abandoned in a wooded area underneath the interstate near Naomi Street and State Avenue on the city’s near southeast side. An IMPD detective then recovered the vehicle.
The surveillance and past runs to the home in the 3300 block of West 9th Street helped detectives identify McGarr and Carachure as suspects.
IMPD continues surveillance as juveniles become linked to case
IMPD detectives conducted surveillance on the home in the 3300 block of West 9th Street on June 19. A detective said he saw a juvenile with a handgun in his waistband and five people going in and out of the home during the surveillance.
Another IMPD officer said he recognized one of the juveniles as being in the black Chrysler 200 when they were tracking the stolen Jeep on June 12. Police also saw someone fire a gun in the air.
The next day, on June 20, IMPD officers pulled over the black Chrysler 200. Carachure did not have a valid driver’s license.
Officers say a 14-year-old male in the car was the juvenile seen with a handgun in his waistband the night before. According to court documents, he has a pending case for auto theft.
Another teen in the car, a 14-year-old male, had an active warrant for auto theft. Police believe he is the one who fired a gun in the air on June 19. He was arrested while the others were released.
Father and kids robbed at taco truck
IMPD offers were called near 22nd Street and Tibbs Avenue after a man, Rafael Merino Neri, said that four men robbed him and his kids at their taco truck in the early morning hours of June 26. He said he had been making tacos for the neighborhood to celebrate his daughter’s 16th birthday.
He said one of the suspects told him he was with the police and demanded all of his money from the taco truck. He said the group threatened to murder his children if they didn’t give them the money.
He said the suspects took a few hundred dollars in cash, his cell phone and his daughter’s cell phone.
“There are no words. Well, my girl has been in very bad shape,” the wife of Neri, Karen Munguia, said. “The food truck. We have always had it. Maybe they believe that one has money where one is a worker because we work day by day to give my children something to eat. We strive.”
The suspects then ran away, fired several shots at the man and his kids, then got into a black car.
Police, through surveillance, tied the black Chrysler 200 and the residence in the 3300 block of West 9th Street to the robbery.
Police then got a search warrant just after 5 a.m. for the 9th Street residence. Police found car keys, cell phones, tablets and several blow torches. A search warrant of the black Chrysler 200 revealed an ID of the man who was pistol-whipped on June 5. A black safe was also in the trunk of the car.
IMPD officers then interview McGarr. According to court documents, McGarr said one of the juveniles came up with the plan to rob the taco truck. After the robbery, he said he gave the money to the juvenile who came up with the plan. The juvenile then gave McGarr, Carachure and another juvenile $15 each for their roles in the robbery, according to court documents.
Police say McGarr also confessed to breaking into the apartment on June 11, saying it was the idea of the same juvenile who pitched the taco truck robbery. He told officers that he and Carachure were not wearing masks but the other three involved in the robbery were. According to court documents, this juvenile is the friend of Carachure’s son.
Investigators also say that Carachure confessed to being the driver during the taco truck robbery.
“Danielle Gutierrez Carachure stated that Ronald McGarr made mention of having her son’s friend help Ronald McGarr with the ‘lick,’ of a taco truck,” court documents state, with “lick” being slang for robbery.
“Whether it be someone who’s Hispanic or from a different country, speaks a different language, anyone who is vulnerable, it’s frustrating that people would seek out those individuals,” said IMPD Lt. Shane Foley.
Carachure and McGarr were charged on July 1 and had initial hearings on the same day.
They are due back in court for pretrial hearings in October.
News 8’s Camila Fernandez contributed to this report.
