Story Created:
Jun 23, 2008 at 2:27 PM EST
Story Updated:
Jun 23, 2008 at 3:57 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A prosecutor filed charges of attempted murder and feticide Monday against a man accused of shooting a pregnant teller in the abdomen during a bank robbery, causing her to lose the twin girls she was carrying.
Brian Kendrick, 29, also was charged with robbery and carrying a handgun without a license and could face up to 87 years in prison if convicted on all counts, said Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, who indicated he may personally present the case in court.
A second man, Aaron Stewart, 28, who allegedly assisted Kendrick but was not inside the bank during the holdup and shooting, was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and could face up to 20 years, Brizzi said.
Both men are scheduled for initial hearings in Marion Superior Court on Tuesday morning.
The 30-year-old teller, Katherin Shuffield, was five months pregnant when she was shot during the April 22 robbery at a Huntington Bank branch on Indianapolis' east side. She lost her unborn twins two days later.
"There is no explanation for it," Brizzi said of the shooting. "Even Stewart was surprised and angry that those shots were fired; it was not supposed to go down that way."
A telephone message seeking comment from Shuffield was left at her home.
According to a police report also released Monday, witnesses and bank employees told authorities a man vaulted the teller's counter, pointed a handgun at Shuffield's abdomen and shot her, even though she was not resisting. The shooting also was recorded by bank surveillance cameras, the report said.
After the shooting, the robber grabbed money from two teller drawers, placed it in a duffel bag, fired one more shot into a chair and ran out the front door of the bank, the report said. He ran through a neighboring yard and into a getaway vehicle.
"We had literally no other information, other than the information provided by the folks that saw that," the prosecutor said.
A tip two weeks ago from someone who called and then met with Sheriff Frank Anderson led authorities to Stewart, who confessed his role in the robbery and identified Kendrick as the shooter, Brizzi said.
He said the tip from that informant and then from another unidentified witness, along with the confession by Stewart, were critical in the investigation. But he would not say whether there are other suspects.
"We're continuing to ask any citizen who has any information to come forward and help us to make sure anyone involved is investigated. At this point, it is an ongoing investigation and I don't want to compromise it by divulging what the police may or may not know."
Stewart told police he was not in the bank but had agreed to follow Kendrick and watch out for him. He said he later saw Kendrick with a black backpack that contained money that apparently had been discolored from an exploded dye pack.
According to Stewart, Kendrick told him, "It's all ruined. I did it for nothing," the police report said.
"When you read something like that in the report," Brizzi said, "and the harm that was caused here for no reason — Mrs. Shuffield was not resisting, she was not in any way a danger ... but allegedly he shot her anyway and then fired another bullet into a chair on his way out, so that kind of a selfish statement about 'did it for nothing' ... Obviously, the motivation was money."