30-year-old Indianapolis woman charged with murder in drive-by shooting

This story has been updated from a post first made July 26, 2023.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A 30-year-old woman was formally charged Thursday with murder for her role in the June death of a 33-year-old man on the Indianapolis east side, online court records show.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department went just after 3:10 p.m. June 7 to a report of a person shot in the 2400 block of North Kenyon Street. That’s a residential area near Windsor Village Park and west of the I-70 interchange for I-465.

Police had last reported Michael Hess was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The Marion County Coroner’s Office reported June 8 that he’d died at Eskenazi Hospital.

Police initially called the incident a drive-by shooting.

Monique Cooley, of Indianapolis, was being held Thursday in the Marion County jail. Online court information said she was put on “no bond hold” on Tuesday.

Court documents revealed children were in the vicinity when the shooting happened.

Witnesses told police that a woman got out of a white sedan, possibly a Dodge Chrysler 200, and waved a gun at Hess. He got out of the driver’s seat of a white Malibu while holding a young child in his arms. The woman, later determined to be Cooley, told another male at the scene to take the child from Hess because she was going to shoot him, which is what happened. Witnesses indicated from two to four shots were fired, and children were rushed from the area once the shooting began.

Police found the Chrysler on Van Buren Court after the shooting.

The court documents also say surveillance video helped investigators confirm much of what witnesses had relayed.

Geolocation on Cooley’s cellphone also put her near the crime scene at the time of the shooting, court documents say.

Anyone with information about the crime was asked to call IMPD Detective Stephanie Herr at 317-327-3475 or email her Stephanie.Herr2@Indy.gov.