Folks who live
along the South Calumet Road/100E corridor between Porter Ave. and
1050N--and who have residential surveillance cameras installed on their
property--are being asked to contact the Chesterton Police Department at
(219) 926-1136.
CPD Chief Dave
Cincoski told the Chesterton Tribune late on Monday that
investigators working to establish Christopher Mark Dillard’s movements in
the hours before and after Nicole Gland’s slaying--sometime between 2:53 and
3:45 a.m. Wednesday, April 19--believe surveillance footage shot along the
South Calumet Road/100E corridor could be of assistance.
Cincoski described
an investigation with multiple moving parts and avenues of inquiry, all of
which are being actively pursued, he said. Cincoski declined, however, to
release at this time any more information than was contained in the probable
cause affidavit filed against Dillard on Friday.
Dillard in Court
Meanwhile, Dillard,
50, of Hobart, entered a standard plea of not guilty on Monday morning, at a
preliminary hearing before Porter Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa, Deputy
Prosecuting Attorney Cheryl Polarek told the Tribune today.
Alexa, for his
part, assigned public defender Bob Harper to represent Dillard, after
Dillard informed Alexa that he’s indigent, owns no property or vehicle, has
no bank account, and--besides his employment as a bouncer at the Upper Deck
Lounge--worked in food preparation at an unspecified Wendy’s restaurant,
Polarek said.
In addition, Alexa
granted the state’s motion to order Dillard to submit to finger- and
handprinting and to provide blood, urine, and DNA samples. Polarek noted
that the CPD previously obtained and executed a search warrant for blood and
urine samples, for the purpose of drug-testing Dillard, as well as a
separate warrant for DNA samples. But investigators are interested in
obtaining what are known as “major-case prints” of Dillard’s finger- and
handprints, over and above those taken on his being booked into the Porter
County Jail, Polarek said.
Dillard is
currently being held without bond, although he is entitled to file a “motion
to let bail,” under which the state would be required to argue why a bond
should not be set for him. As of this morning, Polarek said, Dillard had not
filed such a motion.
Trial has been
tentatively scheduled in Alexa’s court for Aug. 28 and preliminary hearings
for June 9 and July 21.
Murder is
punishable in Indiana by a term of 45 to 65 years.
The Case
Gland, 23, a
bartender at the Upper Deck Lounge and a resident of Portage, was found
deceased in her Ford SUV at 9:10 a.m. Wednesday, April 19, next to a
dumpster behind the Chesterton Tribune building on Lois Lane, two
doors to the south of the Upper Deck. An autopsy subsequently determined
that she’d been stabbed 24 times in the torso, head, and neck, and had bled
to death.
The break in the
case came later the same day, when Dillard’s girlfriend reported to Hobart
Police, after hearing the news of Gland’s death, that she’d discovered a
knife missing from her butcher block, Cincoski stated in his affidavit.
Dillard was located in Hobart on the evening of April 19, detained for
questioning, and transported to the Chesterton Police station.
During the course
of that interview, Cincoski stated, Dillard advised that he remembered
little of his movements in the early morning hours of April 19, as he’d been
“‘partying rough’ for the last two days.”
But in a
conversation with his girlfriend early in the morning of Thursday, April
20--in a recorded interview room at the CPD station and with full knowledge
that his comments were being taped--Dillard admitted that “I killed the
girl, I didn’t mean to,” telling his girlfriend that “the drugs had a hold
of him,” Cincoski stated in his affidavit.