Robert Andrews

Robert Andrews

Wife charged with murder in shooting, fire

Dottie Andrews set fire in garage before shooting estranged husband and his dog, police documents say

June 23, 2009

NASHVILLE — Dottie Andrews told a police detective that she shot her estranged husband once with a .25-caliber handgun early Friday morning.

Then, when he continued breathing, she shot him again.

Tuesday afternoon, Brown County Prosecutor Jim Oliver charged the 40-year-old woman with murder, arson and burglary.

She is accused of setting a fire at the Brown County home she once shared with her husband, breaking into the residence and then killing 44-year-old Robert Andrews as he slept.

She then put the man’s dog up on the bed and shot it dead as well.

The accused killer told police she intended to then kill herself, but the gun jammed.

From her bed at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where she is recovering from burns and smoke inhalation, she told Indiana State Police Detective Jeff Deckard she tried to carry the dog from the house, was overcome by the fire and then ran out and called 911.

After the blaze was extinguished, a sheriff’s deputy found her lying in a three-sided chicken coop near the house at 7880 Whispering Pines Drive in northern Brown County.

She had filed for divorce April 7.

She also was granted a restraining order against her husband in May, alleging he had been threatening toward her in the past.

A notebook found inside her red Chevrolet Blazer at the scene of the shooting was open to a page with the following words written on it: “I will see you in hell. The things you have done to me, not only cheating on me, but beating me up and raped me too, you sick freak.”

According to Deckard’s account of interviews with Dottie Andrews, the couple’s 20-year marriage had ended badly.

They had been living apart for more than 18 months.

She told Deckard she drove to the Whispering Pines subdivision about three miles north of Helmsburg last Thursday evening and parked down the road from her former home. She watched her husband grill his dinner and drink beer outside. She waited for an hour after the lights had gone out, then broke a window and entered the residence.

She told Deckard she looked at her husband’s cell phone and discovered that hours earlier he had called “some people he had promised that he wouldn’t communicate with,” according to an affidavit filed in the case. “‘She said this made her furious.”

She went to the garage and set a fire, then returned to the house.

“She said she went into Robert’s bedroom where he was asleep and shot Robert with a .25-caliber handgun,” the affidavit said. “He continued to breathe, and she shot him again.”

Her relatives said she had been living in Indianapolis the past few months with her sister.

They reported that Robert Andrews had been calling and threatening her two or three times a day, in violation of the protective order granted in Brown Circuit Court.

Dottie Andrews remains hospitalized in police custody. Oliver said she will be transported to the Brown County Jail in Nashville and held without bond when she is released.

She was listed in critical condition last Friday. Tuesday, hospital officials would not release information about her condition.

Oliver said she is expected to recover and return to face the charges against her.

McKinley Collins

Dad's dead, mom's in jail, kids want her charges dropped

Posted: Monday, 28 September 2009 8:34AM

HAMMOND, Ind. (STNG) -- Their father is dead, their mother is in jail, and the children of McKinley and Athena Collins feel like justice is not forthcoming.

"We just feel like our mother has been railroaded," Natasha Collins said during an interview where her pain and that of her brother, McKinley Collins Jr., was palpable.

"I pray every single day that the Lord would spare any other family from what we're going through," Natasha Collins said as tears streamed down her face. "We haven't had time just to grieve our dad.''

The siblings said they'd like to see charges against their mother dropped.

Athena Yevette Collins, 51, of Hammond, who is charged with murder in the shooting death of their father, McKinley Collins, 54, had tried to reconcile with their father after she moved from Chicago to Hammond without him more than a decade earlier.

On Aug. 5, 2008, a violent argument ensued at the Collins' home. Athena Collins, who had been the victim of domestic violence in the past, told officers who showed up at the White Oak Avenue home that her husband had tried to kill her.

A knife lay near her husband's right hand. Eight hair extensions ripped from Athena Collins' head lay on the kitchen floor, and an iron with bloodstains sat in the kitchen. The gun Athena Collins admitted she fired at her husband was on the kitchen table.

Athena Collins had a large knot on her head and several knife wounds on her body, but investigators said in court records they felt the knife wounds may have been self-inflicted. She also told police her husband tried to kill her. He choked her, punched her, hit her with the iron and ripped out her hair extensions, according to court records.

Defense attorney Catherine Lake, who is seeking to suppress statements her client made, said the notion that Athena Collins would cut herself badly enough to require surgery is preposterous.

Athena Collins had a gun because the man who shot her son, leaving him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair, had been seen a few doors down in the neighborhood.

Prior to the shooting, Natasha Collins said her mother was trying to see if the couple could make their marriage work. Athena Collins allowed him into the home, but didn't let him move all his belongings from Chicago.

After the shooting, their mom, a certified nursing assistant, traveled to Nebraska and stayed with her sister. Collins and the family were still grieving the loss of their maternal grandmother. "She was totally distraught, depressed," her daughter said. She had attempted suicide and was hospitalized.

Natasha and McKinley Collins said they have been unable to convince the Prosecutor's Office to drop the charges against their mother. In fact, beyond being told of court dates, there has been little communication between the Prosecutor's Office and Natasha and McKinley Collins.

"We were told they would take it to a grand jury, but they never did,'' Natasha Collins said of the nine months between the shooting and charges being filed.

"She always stood up for what is right," Natasha Collins said of her mother.

"This isn't justice for her. This isn't justice for us. What about the truth?"

Diane Poulton, a spokeswoman for Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter, said: "Whenever a family has to deal with the fallout of a violent crime committed against a loved one it is a highly stressful time. Added to that stress is having to deal with the criminal justice system, which tends to move slowly and often in ways that do not make sense to someone unfamiliar with the system.

"The emotional turmoil caused by having a family member charged with killing another rarely ends with all of the surviving family members being satisfied with the outcome in the courts. It requires a delicate balance from the Prosecutor's Office of being sensitive to the family's needs and those of the case.''

Meanwhile, Lake and Trial Supervisor Mary Ryan will be back in court to continue with evidence in the motion to suppress Collins' statements. They have had six days of hearings thus far before Magistrate Natalie Bokota.

Mardale Totten

Stabbing was self-defense; man ID'd

Police believe the stabbing was the result of a domestic dispute

September 28, 2009

Fort Wayne Police said the fatal stabbing of a city man at 4 a.m. Saturday by a woman he knew was inflicted in self-defense, although ruled the city's 16th homicide.

The woman, who had been taken into custody after police said she stabbed 30-year-old Mardale Totten in the neck at an apartment at 708 Oaklawn Court, in Chapel Oaks complex, was interviewed, then released without being charged, according to Office Roy Sutphin of the Fort Wayne Police Department.

“We don't release people when we know they killed somebody,” said Sutphin. “And we just don't release people who could be a danger to the public.”

After interviewing several witnesses and the woman, Sutphin said police believe the stabbing was the result of a domestic dispute between Totten, who has a prison record for violence, and the woman. What the domestic dispute exactly entailed, Sutphin would not comment.

“The investigation is ongoing, but for the moment, until proven otherwise, we're going on the aspect that it was along the lines of self-defense,” Sutphin said.

Totten's death was ruled the city's 16th homicide of 2009 by the Allen County Coroner's Office.

On Saturday, police responding to the Oaklawn Court address found Totten unconscious and bleeding. He was treated at the scene before being rushed to a local hospital, where he later died.

Sutphin said that because the woman has not been charged with any crime, police are not required to release her name.

When Totten was 18, he was convicted of stabbing his uncle, Marquas K. Smith, to death in 1997. He served 10 years of a 15-year sentence for aggravated battery before being released in 2008, according to the Indiana Department of Corrections.

John Hood

Bloomington murder suspect arrested

Police: Woman shot husband in chest

POSTED AT 12:00 AM ON Aug. 24, 2007

A Bloomington man was shot and murdered Thursday night after a reported domestic dispute.

John Hood, 63, owner of Putter’s Park and Johnny Joe’s Pub in Ellettsville, was shot once in the chest, said Monroe County Det. Brad Swain.

Police believe his wife, Juanita, 52, shot him.

At about 11:30 p.m. the Monroe County Sheriff’s department received a 911 call from Hood’s daughter, saying Juanita Hood had told her she shot John Hood, Monroe County Det. Brad Swain said.

Monroe County dispatched state troopers to their house where emergency personnel determined John Hood to be dead at the scene, Swain said. After interviewing Juanita Hood, officers arrested her. She now faces preliminary charges of murder.

Swain said the sheriff’s department will be pursuing other issues to try and get a clearer picture of what happened.

Juanita Hood was transported to the Monroe County Jail and is being held without bond.

Update:

Juanita Hood sentenced to probation in shooting death of her husband

March 8, 2011

Juanita Hood endured years of abuse at the hands of her husband and was so frightened on an August night in 2007 that she shot him as he grabbed her by the throat....