Beech Grove Man Convicted in 2019 Murder

Beech Grove, IN (April 29, 2021) - A Beech Grove, Indiana man has been convicted in the 2019 murder of a man who was celebrating his bachelor party at a bar on the Southside of Indianapolis.

 

Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears on Thursday announced that Derek Oechsle was convicted of murder and criminal recklessness in the death of Christopher Smith.

RELATED | Beech Grove man charged in fatal gunfight

Authorities said Smith was at Jake's Pub, 1280 West Southport Road, celebrating his bachelor party with friends when Oechsle became visibly upset and got into a physical altercation with another person at the bar.

Witnesses told authorities Oechsle pulled out a gun and began hitting the other person when Smith tried to break up the fight. Oechsle then shot Smith and fired other shots into the crowd until one of Smith’s friends returned fire.

Smith was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died. A sentencing hearing for Oechsle has been set for May 20 at 2 p.m.

Beech Grove Man Arrested for Drug Possession

Wheatfield, IN (July 15, 2020) - A Beech Grove man driving through Jasper County last week was arrested and charged with four offenses by the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.

Tymothy J. Debolt, 31, will face charges of dealing in methamphetamine (Level 4 felony), possession of methamphetamine (Level 6 felony), habitual traffic offender (Level 6 felony) and possession of paraphernalia (Class C misdemeanor) after he was spotted at a gas station in Wheatfield on July 7.

According to police, a female called 911 advising the sheriff’s department that a vehicle had followed her from Indiana 2 and I-65 into Wheatfield.

After his car was found stopped at a gas station, deputies approached Debolt, who said he followed the other vehicle because he thought it was one of his “buddies.” Deputies would later discover that Debolt was a habitual traffic offender and should not have been driving.

Because Debolt appeared nervous and because of his previous record, JCSD brought in K9 Alfa and his handler to complete an open-air sniff of Debolt’s vehicle. Alfa alerted police to the presence of narcotics in the vehicle.

Eventually, deputies obtained a search warrant for the vehicle, which revealed individual baggies containing a crystal substance that field-tested positive for meth. Paraphernalia was also found.

Debolt was later transported to the Jasper County Detention Center. Arrests and criminal charges are mere accusations. Every person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

SOURCE: Northwest Indiana Times

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What You Want to Know About Your Home

Beech Grove, IN (February 10, 2020) — The anxiety of buying a new home can form in any number of ways, and you might find yourself questioning the property you’ve chosen – is the backyard really that small? Is the soil contaminated from the nasty-looking stream nearby? Is your house haunted?

Maybe you’re not asking the last one, and maybe you’re trying to convince yourself you’re not asking the last one – but it’s not unreasonable to wonder. Rest assured you can investigate your concerns before you purchase a home, and you can do most of it online.

Four websites provide a wide of range of property details, and then some – from historic aerial images to documents that show the home was used as a meth lab. These tools can help you see what might be a game changer before you sign the deed.

DiedinHouse.com

True to its name, DiedinHouse.com can tell you the name of every person associated with the address at any point in time, if someone has died in a home, if there were any previous fires on the property or if it was ever used as a meth lab.

Roy Condrey, founder and co-CEO of DiedinHouse.com, says he got the idea for the site when a tenant in one of his rental properties claimed the house was haunted. Condrey found no evidence of the paranormal, but it made him wonder. “I started thinking, I didn’t know the history of these homes,” Condrey says.

When Condrey found no websites offering information about deaths in homes, searchable by address, DiedinHouse.com was born.

At $11.99 for a single search, you receive an instant report that pulls from data providers that partner with DiedinHouse.com. For the next 30 days, DiedinHouse.com will continue to search the address in case the initial report missed anything and will notify you with any new results, as well as provide a final report at the end of the 30 days.

Condrey says it’s up to the consumer to decide whether certain results are a deal-breaker on a home, but having the information keeps you from wondering after you’ve moved in.

“A lot of people say one-third of Americans admit to believing in ghosts – and I say those are the ones that admit it. There’s a lot of people that don’t admit it, but also there’s more to it than just paranormal [activity]. ... I still don’t want to live in Andrea Yates’ home where she drowned her five children,” says Condrey, referencing the 2001 case in Houston. "I don’t want to live in a home with any deaths, that’s just my opinion.”

Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has digitized its collection of more than 5 million federal land title records, making it possible to pull up images of original documents signing land over to private individuals dating back to 1820.

Survey plat maps, land patents and field notes on properties show the formation of property lines. All the information is searchable with the state name, name of the patentee or even minute details for the property, such as township number, survey number and issue date.

The free searchable collection of documents only covers property in the 30 states formed from the public domain, which excludes the original 13 states, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia. However, details for properties in those states should be available through an online or in-person search through the state’s archives.

NETROnline.com

Originally launched as a portal for environmental records, National Environmental Title Research, better known by its acronym, provides an array of information from its databases and partner information companies, as well as links to local assessor offices across the country.

NETROnline.com’s property data has become a standard resource for many financial institutions. As Brett Perry, president and founder of NETROnline.com, explains, the site streamlines the research process on a home, “essentially making it easier to get those documents, as opposed to going to the courthouse [in person].”

While property data reports can be purchased through the site for additional information not readily available, the site provides free access to environmental records, links to county assessors' offices with online records and aerial images that date back to the 1920's.

While much of the information is used for professional use, Perry says features like the historic aerial photos are popular among metal detecting hobbyists who research where buildings once stood on a property and may have artifacts buried in the soil.

“It’s a virtual time machine,” Perry says. “It enables the user to put in their location and see what it looks like not only today from a bird’s-eye view, but going back in time in some instances to the 1920s and the 30s … you can look at different decades and see what existed on your property.”

HouseFax

Providing reports of a wide range of property information, HouseFax aims to increase the transparency of property information so homebuyers know what they’re getting into.

HouseFax CEO Eddy Lang explains the site started in 2002, inspired by an ongoing lawsuit at the time between Ed McMahon and his home insurance company after mold grew and spread throughout his house. A Los Angeles Times article from 2003 reports the case was settled; McMahon was awarded $7.2 million for a shoddy cleanup job from a home flood caused by a pipe burst, which made McMahon and his wife ill, and forced them to put their dog to sleep.

After following the case, Lang says he wanted to give homebuyers a better understanding of properties they view before they make the purchase. He adds that homebuyers should know the previous insurance claims on the home, what construction has been permitted on the property and what damage the property might be prone to based on the location and topography of the land. "Usually, insurance is the very last piece of [the transaction], and that’s when you find out: Is it in a flood zone? Has there been damage? Was there a fire in the house? What are the previous claims?” Lang says.

Housefax offers the first Property History Report for free, with each report after that costing $9 each – which includes property details, building permits, records of carbon monoxide or use of the property as a meth lab, natural disaster risk assessments and loan history.

The site meets homebuyer and seller needs, which make up 70 percent of HouseFax’s users, according to Lang. But for real estate professionals looking to pull reports en masse, subscriptions are available as well. HouseFax also offers an offline service – the pre-appraisal report – which brings an appraiser to your home to inspect it, take photos and make an appraisal estimate for $199 to $399, depending on square footage. The service is intended to provide buyers or sellers with a better understanding of the value of a home before a lender gets involved and conducts an appraisal.

Whether you’re curious about the construction history on a property or want to confirm your house is inhabited by the recently deceased, an increasing number of sites are offering greater transparency with property records and can provide you with the answers to questions that the deed, or maybe even the listing agent, won’t tell you.

SOURCE: Business Insider

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Pedestrian plan under review for Marion County

Beech Grove, IN (January 17, 2020) — Time is running out for more than a million people in central Indiana to weigh in as an effort is now underway to write a new master plan for new sidewalks and priorities to keep pedestrians safe when they’re walking near their homes and offices.

There’s about 30 people a year killed and another 100 people seriously injured along roads in Marion County and surrounding areas. Many of these incidents happening in an area with no sidewalk.​

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The last master plan helped Churchman Avenue in Beech Grove get a new sidewalk several years ago. The last plan was created back in 2006 but a lot that has changed in more than 13 years. That’s why planners want to hear from residents.​

Churchman Avenue has homes, the high school and even a police station. Yet it didn’t get a sidewalk between Emerson and Arlington until 2017.

After 18 months of work, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization or MPO is in the final stretch of its latest Regional Pedestrian Plan.​

MPO principal planner Jen Higginbotham tells News 8 the idea is to prioritize which roads most desperately need help so that in future years they can be addressed.​​

“So many people are actually dying on the roadways possibly because they’re not visible, possibly because they’re not on a sidewalk. We don’t know exactly but there are people that need safe places to walk.”​

The MPO takes the federal dollars raised from the gas tax and allocates them to big projects including roads, roundabouts, trails, transit as well as sidewalks.​

MPO VIDEOS (Metropolitan Planning Organization)

Planners say of more than 5,400 miles of main roads in the 8-county area, just 31% have a sidewalk. More than 3,700 miles do not — mileage which does not include interstates and neighborhood streets.​ 

Higginbotham said it’s a bit of a surprise to see how many even urban pockets don’t allow people to walk a short 0.5 mile to the grocery store.​​ 

“Walking is important,” she said. “If you think about it, for one, it’s the cheapest way to get around, it’s free to use your legs and for reasons of health.” 

​​And of course, not everyone has access to a car.​ 

So if you live in the 975-square mile area covered by the MPO, and there’s 1.5 million people who do, take a look and tell the MPO what you think because it may be another 13 years before it happens again.​​ 

“We would like to see for the communities in the region to take the plans we’ve created and use it as a resource in their own planning,” said Higginbotham.​​ 

These plans affect 33 cities and towns in 8 counties from A to Z, Arcadia to Zionsville. 

There are a number of ways you can leave feedback including email, Facebook and Twitter. ​The deadline for public input is Jan. 22, that’s Wednesday.​ 

The Pedestrian Plan will be presented to the Regional Transportation Council on Feb. 19.​ 

Click here to view the current plan and submit your input online.

SOURCE: WISH

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Beech Grove man charged in fatal gunfight

Beech Grove, IN (December 8, 2019) — A man is facing four charges, including murder, in connection with a bar gunfight that killed another man. Derek Oechsle, 32, of Beech Grove also was charged Thursday with attempted murder, battery and criminal recklessness in connection with the fatal shooting of Christopher Smith, 41, of Indianapolis on November 29 at Jake's Pub.

Witnesses told police Oechsle came into the bar and sat down across from a group celebrating Smith's bachelor party, The Indianapolis Star reported, citing a probable cause affidavit.

One member of the group who told police Oechsle stared at him and asked Oechsle whether he thought he was pretty. Oechsle got up, pulled out a gun and hit the man in the head with it, the affidavit said.


Smith was trying to separate the two when Oechsle allegedly fired and struck Smith several times, the affidavit said. Smith suffered one shot to the head and one shot that hit multiple organs.

Another witness pulled out his own gun and shot Oechsle, who then ran outside and fell, the affidavit said. Smith and Oechsle were taken to a hospital, where Smith was pronounced dead.

Oechsle was booked into the Marion County Jail. His attorney said he had no comment on the case at this time.

SOURCE: Associated Press
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