Girl charged as adult sentenced to 50 years for 2 murders in Lafayette
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) — A Lafayette woman who turned 18 in June was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison after being charged as an adult with three counts of murder, according to the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor’s Office.
Jaelynn Billups also was found guilty of five other criminal charges after the shooting deaths of two men in August 2020
Billups was found guilty in Tippecanoe Superior Court 2 with killing Joshua L. Ungersma, 37. She also was charged with killing Ungersma while committing or attempting to commit robbery. In the other murder count, she was charged with causing Ungersma to kill Alberto Vanmeter, 19. She’s also charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery, theft, pointing a firearm, and carrying a handgun without a license.
Two Lafayette Police Department officers responded just before 11:15 p.m. Aug. 31, 2020, to a “shots fired” run in a residential area in the 1900 block of North 16th Street. That’s southwest of the intersection of U.S. 52/Sagamore Parkway and Schuyler Avenue.
The officers found Ungersma and Vanmeter dead in the road. Billups was at the scene.
Ungersma, a delivery driver for Domino’s Pizza, was found with “a .38 S&W revolver in his pocket with the rounds fired,” police said. He had a permit to carry a handgun.
Vanmeter was found nearby with a Domino’s pizza box, two drinks and cash laying on the ground beside him. Police later confirmed Vanmeter was Billups’s girlfriend.
One witness told police he heard Billups say Ungersma had shot Vanmeter, and the witness was one of two who saw Billups shoot Ungersma.
Billups used the same phone number to order the pizza and drinks and to call 911 after the shootings. The address for the delivery was an unoccupied home.
A coroner determined Ungersma died of multiple gunshot wounds while Vanmeter died of a single gunshot wound.
