Shadonna D. Cheatham

Boyfriend Charged in Woman's Slaying

Police: Man shot her, held gun to his mouth

July 26, 2007

CROWN POINT | Prosecutors on Thursday charged Shadonna Cheatham's boyfriend with fatally shooting her.  Dia Nelson, 33, of Gary, faces 65 years in prison if convicted of murder.

Court records show Cheatham's mother was visiting her Thursday evening at the apartment Cheatham, 22, and Nelson shared.

The mother and daughter were outside talking when Cheatham went back inside, reports state. A short time later, the woman heard a gunshot from inside the apartment.

When she went inside, she saw Nelson's two children at the bottom of the steps calling up to their father. Cheatham's mother went upstairs and found Nelson standing in the bathroom with a handgun to his mouth threatening to kill himself, reports state.  Then she saw her daughter on the floor with a bullet wound to her head.

Nelson's children were coming up the stairs so she grabbed them and took them to a neighbor's house, where she called police, reports state.  She went back to her daughter's apartment and saw Nelson coming downstairs with the gun still in his mouth.

Another witness told police he saw Nelson go back into the apartment. When he came back out, Nelson said: "It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it," the probable cause affidavit states.

Also:

GARY | In what has been a busy week for Gary homicide detectives, police are looking for a suspect in the Friday morning shooting death of a 22-year-old woman.

Shadonna Cheatham was found at 4456 W. 24th Ave. with a gunshot wound to the head. Cheatham's mother told police she was outside the apartment when she heard a gunshot, went back inside and found her daughter shot in a bedroom, Cmdr. Samuel Roberts said.

The mother told police she saw the suspect holding a gun and saying he was going to kill himself, Roberts said. The man then left the apartment.

Cheatham was pronounced dead at 9:56 a.m. at the Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus.

She is the fourth person killed in Gary this week. About 10 hours earlier, 27-year-old Kenyon Tarver was shot to death about three miles away.