"Details of Thursday night's shooting"
Neighbors say Vernal Ash rarely ventured outside of his 509 Rose St. home unless it was to tend to his yard.
But without a known motive Thursday night, Ash shot Craig Jenks, 22, in an alley behind Ash's home before retreating inside and killing himself.
Ash, 60, was pronounced dead early Friday morning by LaPorte County Coroner Dr. Vidya Kora.
Jenks, of LaPorte, who was visiting his parents at 110 Ohio St., was on life support this morning at LaPorte Hospital, Kora said.
Jenks, was pronounced dead Friday morning after it was determined he was brain dead.
He continued to be listed in critical condition, however, and his family chose to donate his organs. LaPorte City Police Chief Walter Brath said Friday morning that Ash shot Jenks in the alley behind Ash's home shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday, while Jenks and a friend were working on a motorcycle.
Ash and Jenks had apparently argued over property disputes in the past, but no clear motive for the shooting was known this morning.
The homes are on different streets but are connected in the back by an alley. LaPorte City and County Police and the LaPorte County Emergency Response Team (ERT) staked out Ash's house for some three hours Thursday night, not knowing if he was alive or dead.
Brath said this morning that Ash shot Jenks with a handgun, likely a .22 caliber, from a sunroom on the back of Ash's house.
Ash was later found dead in that sunroom from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"We currently have two separate crime scenes so we'll be here all night," Brath said Thursday night, shortly after the ERT entered the house and found Ash dead.
"There's what looks like a suicide inside the house and another crime scene in the alley." Ash's wife, Billie, and son, who is in his 20s, had left the house shortly before the shootings, police said. Before entering the house, LaPorte police had attempted to make contact with Ash numerous times by megaphone.
Negotiators also called Ash on his home telephone, but to no avail.
They pleaded with him, asking him to flash a light. While attempting to communicate with Ash, police blocked off a one-block area surrounding his Rose Street home until deciding to enter the house.
As dusk turned to dark, police in ERT gear surrounded Ash's home and strategically planned to enter the residence.
Based on police spotters surrounding the house, Brath said, officers had an idea of Ash's location inside the house before they went in.
"Our guys had an eyeball on him inside the house," Brath said.
"He didn't appear to be moving so we figured we might have two crime scenes on our hands."
ERT members, armed with automatic weapons, shotguns and battering equipment, entered the home from the back alley around 10:50 p.m. and found Ash's body in the sunroom, Brath said.
"Ready to die?"
LaPorte City Police received a call around 7:30 Thursday night indicating Jenks had been shot.
When authorities arrived, they found the wounded Jenks lying in the alley.
According to James Bazemore of LaPorte, who was with Jenks at the time of the shooting, Ash peered out of the sunroom and asked the two if they were "ready to die."
He then fired two shots, one of which wounded Jenks. The other shot, Bazemore said, missed his own head by a matter of inches.
Bazemore said, "If it weren't for (Jenks) standing where he was, I would have gotten it."
Brath disputed part of that report this morning, though, saying Ash shot only once at the two men.
The second shot witnesses say they heard may have been Ash shooting himself, Brath said.
LaPorte County Prosecutor Robert Beckman said possible witnesses to the shooting were being questioned.
"Witnesses are being interviewed as we speak," he said Thursday night.
"We still have to go through and investigate each crime scene and make sure everything matches up."
With the suspect dead, however, the investigation would be mostly procedural, Beckman said.
After debriefing officers and ERT members, Brath told reporters gathered outside the home that Ash may have been drinking and on medication at the time of the shooting.
That information, Brath said, came from Ash's wife.
"Neighbors give their opinions on Jenks and Ash"
Vernal Ash's neighbors said he was a friendly sort. They said he didn't seem the type prone to violence.
So when the 60-year-old shot Craig Jenks, 22, in the alley behind Ash's 509 Rose St. home, then later killed himself Thursday night, neighbors were surprised.
"He didn't seem like a violent person," said Ash's next-door neighbor Jim Barkow Thursday night as he watched the scene and police used his upstairs bathroom to survey Ash's house.
"He always waved and said 'hi' whenever I saw him." Barkow, who has lived in his Rose Street home for some 25 years, is a music teacher who has encountered Ash before through Barkow's students. On a number of occasions, Barkow said, Ash had complained about the students walking in Ash's yard.
The complaints mounted and, at one point, Barkow had to have his own yard surveyed. "It turned out the kids were in my yard," he said.
"But just the same, there was a problem."
Jim's wife, Mary, saw Jenks for the last time at 6:55 p.m. as she was heading for church.
She waved at him.
Mary admits she knew very little about Jenks outside the fact that he worked on and rode motorcycles.
Jenks kept to himself, according to Mary.
She said she hasn't talked to Ash's wife, Billie, for months.
She said Billie is "sweet."
Mary, who hardly had any face-to-face contact with Vernal Ash during the entire time the Barkows lived at their residence, would wave to Ash from her back porch.
Mary recalls Ash having dizzy spells because he sometimes would have trouble steadying himself.
"I knew he had been sick for some time and wasn't able to work," she said.
Bob Humphrey, of 809 Ridge St., said he'd known Jenks since Jenks was a little boy. Jenks' parents lived across the alley from Ash's house. "He was a good kid, aggressive," said Humphrey, 60, explaining Jenks wasn't aggressive in a violent manner, but fully involving himself in anything mechanical.
"That was his thing," Mary Barkow said.
"He was always working on something," Humphrey said, whether it was motorcycles, boat motors or some kind of engine.
"That's what I admired about him," said Humphrey this morning while perched on his front porch swing, cigarette in hand.
"I like the kid. It's a shame. You hate to hear anything like that."
Humphrey, who has lived at his residence for 17 years, added that Jenks was a quiet guy who wouldn't talk to anyone unless spoken to first.
"When you talked to him he made a lot of sense." Humphrey said Ash probably didn't mean to shoot Jenks.
"I think he wanted to scare him," he said.
Humphrey was sitting on his front porch Thursday night when he heard a single gunshot.
Other times on his porch, Humphrey would wave at Ash, who regularly was at his own back porch.
"Sometimes he would (wave), sometimes he wouldn't. (Ash) was always miserable, always complaining about something," Humphrey said.
According to Humphrey, who spoke with other neighbors, Ash had called the police several times because of noise coming from the area where Jenks worked on engines.
Humphrey remembers personally on one occasion when Ash yelled in anger at Jenks for the noise.
A nearby business owner, who wished to remain anonymous, said Ash had been despondent for several years.
"He (Ash) was always sitting on his porch watching cars go by. "He snapped," said the man.
While Barkow and friend Pam Schoch, who works at the Barkow residence, both said they felt Ash seemed friendly, they also said he rarely came out of his home.
The man, both said, was "basically homebound."
"You'd only really see him when he'd let his dog out," Barkow said.
"He came out once and gave us tomatoes." "He basically, I think, didn't leave the house because he really couldn't," Schoch added.
Police confirmed this morning that Ash was on disability and may also have been on heavy medication at the time of the shooting.
Barkow said Ash had in the recent past called police three or more times on Jenks because he thought the man was playing his music too loudly.
Barkow wouldn't speculate, however, on whether he felt that was a motive.
"Jenks family donates 22-year-old shooting victim's organs"
When 22-year-old shooting victim Craig Jenks' test results showed him to be brain dead Friday morning, his parents made the decision to donate his organs.
A limited autopsy was first to be performed on Jenks before the donation so detectives could gather more evidence, including a bullet type, to prove the gun used in 60-year-old Vernal Ash's suicide was the same gun used in the Jenks murder, according to LaPorte City Police Chief Walter Brath.
Ash, of 509 Rose St., shot Jenks in an alley behind Ash's home Thursday night, LaPorte City Police said.
Ash had reportedly been upset with Jenks before for working on engines and making noise near Ash's home, which is near Jenks' parents' home. LaPorte Municipal Airport joined in the donor urgency as officials from an Indianapolis hospital flew in shortly after 3 p.m. Friday to pick up a blood sample from Jenks' body, according to Nikki Anderson of LaPorte Municipal Airport.
They departed the airport around 4:30 p.m., Anderson said. The airport's runway, which had been undergoing renovation for the last several weeks, was scheduled to be opened at 6 p.m. Friday, but due to the emergency circumstances Anderson opened the runway for the twin-engine airplane to land.
On Friday morning Brath said Jenks was shot with a handgun, likely a .22 caliber, from a sunroom on the back of Ash's house.
LaPorte County Coroner Dr. Vidya Kora was called to the hospital early Friday to review the test results.
Brath said the conclusion of the investigation is at the mercy of the coroner's office, which has taken over the investigation.
He said it could be a matter of weeks if the bullet needs to be sent to the lab to be analyzed.
"It's still a full-blown murder-suicide with two crime scenes," Brath said.
"There's more here than meets the eye."
After the autopsy and the arrival of the transplant team, Craig's parents, Holly and Calvin Jenks, planned to donate all of Craig's organs, which will be transported to various areas across the country by helicopters or jets flown into the area.
Brath said that Ash shot Jenks in the head shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday, while Jenks and a friend were working on a motorcycle.
Ash was pronounced dead early Friday morning by Kora. Jenks, who was visiting his parents at 110 Ohio St., was on life support at LaPorte Hospital.
His obituary, though, lists his time of death as 8 a.m. Friday, the time he was declared brain dead.
A partial obituary for Jenks and a full obituary for Ash both appear on page 3 today.
Jenks lived at 111 Scott St.
When police arrived shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday night, they found the wounded Jenks lying in the alley.
Organ Recipients
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