Three Years Later: A community still grieves

It made me realize that, truly, what happens in one place in the world impacts the entire world — that we are a people who have this great capability of seeing and walking with, crying with each other. And it doesn’t matter where we are now, because of our ability to communicate.

– Father Michael O’Mara, pastor to the Albarran/Covarrubias family, November, 2008

Today marks the third anniversary of what was undoubtedly the most horrific crime to have hit my hometown of Indianapolis in a generation.

On the night of June 1, 2006, seven members of an east side Latino family — three of whom were young boys, aged five, eight and eleven — were gunned down, execution-style in their home. Two young African-American men, Desmond Turner and James Stewart, were arrested and charged with the murders.

It is believed that the two men were looking for a large stash of drugs and money — some accounts put the figure as high as $60,000 — when they allegedly forced their way into the home that night, armed with assault rifles. But somewhere along the line, something went terribly wrong.

Three years later, the criminal trial is still on hold. If convicted, Turner, who is believed to have been the main triggerman, could face execution. Stewart, who will be tried separately, faces seven first-degree murder charges, and could get life in prison. The two men immediately waved their right to a speedy trial, and the case has grown over the years. Indications are the trials could take months to complete, with possibly hundreds of witnesses to take the stand. Around every corner, shadowy rumors lurk; in quiet, unsure, even paranoid asides, a common wisdom emerges that the story could be much bigger than these two men.

For now, it’s a game of wait-and-see, with the latest trial delay having pushed the start date to October of this year. All indications are the judge is ready to get on with things, that there will be no more delays.

But, for now, there is little closure for the surviving family members and for much of the immediate community on the 500 block of N. Hamilton Avenue, where horror still clings to the vacant soil like ragweed. For the neighbors on that block, there is perhaps no bigger impediment to closure than the abiding presence of the house where the murders took place — a charred, hulking shell of a home, which, just this last August, was torched in what authorities believe was arson.

Speculation over the motive, and over who might be responsible, abounds, adding more grist to the rumor mill. Counter-narratives emerge as terrified neighbors talk openly about conspiracy. But everyone agrees the house won’t be missed once it’s knocked down.  For now, it must remain standing — evidence for a jury visit — until the end of the trial.

Last summer, I began work on a documentary about the massacre, in hopes it might shed some light upon some of the neglect suffered by entire segments of my home city for so long, and upon some of the big changes that are redrawing the social, ethnic, political and economic map of Indianapolis — and Middle American cities like it — in the 21st Century. I left the Midwest about ten years ago, and first heard about this tragedy when I lived in New York. In that sense, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, this story has drawn me back home, in hopes, perhaps of some deeper personal understanding of where I am from.

To a large extent, our efforts were slowed with the latest trial delay. Most of the people we need to interview have been deposed, and can’t really talk with us on-the-record until after the trial. As such, I and my partner, Dylan Griffith, have been gathering what footage we can since August, as I’ve traveled back and forth between Indiana and Los Angeles to try to facilitate production. Above, you’ll see a raw excerpt from our first round of filmed interviews, conducted on Nov. 21, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, in downtown Indianapolis. Dylan and I co-directed.

Speaking is Father Michael O’Mara, pastor of St. Mary’s church, who conducted mass at two funerals held for the Emma Albarran / Alberto Covarrubias family in Indianapolis (a third was held in Mexico, where six of the victims were buried). O’Mara was a wonderful subject, not least of all because he knew the family — particularly Alberto Covarrubias — on an intimate, spiritual level. As he describes here, he was called upon immediately to help guide the family, the local Latino community and Indianapolis as a whole through the tragedy.

A fluent Spanish speaker, O’Mara offers bilingual mass services in Indianapolis, and is an outspoken advocate and community leader on behalf of the growing Latino community there.

In terms of content, we found Father O’Mara to have been particularly valuable as a sort of moral compass for this project. We’ve spoken with others who knew the family better than he did; others who know the ins and outs of the pending criminal trial for the murders; others, still, who have provided crucial details about what actually happened the night of the murders, and who have given us critical context while we explore the nature and genesis of this crime.

In Father O’Mara, we found a calm, articulate and insightful voice, full of grace, wisdom, and a heart-breaking level of pathos. On this three year anniversary, I find his ruminations on everything from the nature of grief, to the origins of evil, to the deep, socio-economic inequalities underpinning this tragedy — some of which you’ll see here — to be invaluable.

In this clip, I also found his thoughts on advances in communication, and the expanding global community as it relates to collective grief particularly compelling for the purposes of TrueSlant.com.

I move back to Indianapolis to turn my attention to the Midwest and to this project at the end of this week. Stay tuned for more footage as we continue shooting, editing what we have, and as the trial unfolds.