Video: Hamilton Avenue, ‘the symbol of all the horrible violence we saw that year’

On June 1, 2006, around 10 pm, a stacatto burst of gunfire pierced the calm of the summer evening on North Hamilton Avenue. When the echoes had subsided, seven members of the Albarran / Covarrubias family were dead — executed in cold blood in their Indianapolis home. Three of the victims, found huddled together on a single bed at the back of the house, were children, aged eleven, eight and five. It was the single worst mass murder incident in Indianapolis history.

The massacre completely shook the Near East Side neighborhood where it occurred, and set the entire city on edge. In retrospect, it would serve as a symbol for the second most violent year in the city’s recorded history: 153 murders, in a city of around a million people.

Two years later, in August of 2008, the house was torched by arsonists, which is why the house you see in the video looks the way it does. No one knows who set the blaze; but that’s the kind of case this is: I can think of at least a half-dozen people who would have had enough motive to do it.

Vic Ryckaert, crime reporter for the Indianapolis Star, was on the scene the morning after the murders. He and several other Indy Star reporters would follow the case closely for the next several weeks, as the fall-out sent shockwaves through the city. Here’s a quick sample from our interview with him for our documentary about the Hamilton Avenue Massacre.

Credits:

Dylan Griffith, Austin Considine — co-directors
Brian Wells — director of photography
Collin Armstrong, Alex Johnson — grips

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