The End of the Story

Case BackgroundPre-TrialSentencingSources

Katron Walker is accused of murdering his 4-year-old son and the attempted murder of his other son, two-year-old Monte. He and his wife were in the process of a marital separation and she was staying at the home of her parents with the children. Katron came to the home in an agitated state and abducted both boys at knife point.

An Amber Alert was activated four hours after the reported abduction.

During the evening someone at a campground noticed the van which was the subject of the Amber Alert and called authorities. Authorities arrived with bloodhounds and approached the campground. Katron ran out of an abandoned trailer with both boys underneath his arms and dove into the lake. Police and strangers dove in after Katron to try and save the boys. Monte was saved from the water but Collin was not so lucky. The boys had been stabbed prior to being brought to the lake. Katron had a self-inflicted stab wound.

Katron tested positive for methamphetamine. The state is seeking the death penalty. Katron’s trial date is set for September 22, 2008.

Pre-Trial 

2007

Katron Walker’s planned defense is not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. I am thinking the only mental defect he has shown is addiction to drugs. I suppose they will try and say because he was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the attacks on his children his was not in control of his faculties. I would buy this defense more if they could prove his mental defect or disease was caused by something he had no control over, i.e. schizophrenia. When you ingest chemicals on purpose to alter your consciousness then I think you have to be prepared to face the consequences of your actions.

October 19, 2008

I received an answer to an e-mail I sent to reporter Deb Kelly at the Terre Haute Tribune-Star regarding why there has not been any coverage of the trial that was supposed to begin September 22. Deb Kelly informed me that Katron Walker’s trial has been reset to February 2, 2009 beginning with jury selection on that date. There is a pre-trial conference set for January 20, 2009.

Deb Kelly did not state how many times this trial has been reset, however, if I recall correctly this will be the second or third time. Katron is supposed to be pleading not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Certainly the length of time he has spent in jail getting clean and sober and being treated for any other mental illness he had at the time of his incarceration have been corrected. The longer he puts off the trial, the more sane he will appear to the jury.

June 19, 2009

Katron Walker and his two attorneys, Jessie Cook and Joe Etling, appeared in court on June 11 for a pre-trial conference. Judge David Bolk said he is close to completing the juror questionnaire. According to the article in the Tribune-Star, 600 prospective jurors will be called and each will have to fill out the extended questionnaire. Judge Bolk also told the attorneys he has been working on the proposed jury instructions and will have them available at the next pre-trial conference set for July 6. Jury selection is set to begin on August 31. Opening arguments are set for September 14.

June 22, 2009

As part of a plea agreement that included taking the death penalty off the table, Katron Walker entered a plea of guilty to murder and attempted murder in Vigo Superior Court. This is a far cry from the previously announced defense strategy of claiming mental defect or illness. The judge scheduled a sentencing date of August 18, 2009.

I hate plea arrangements. Most likely the defense determined their defense strategy would not fly with the jury and they would most likely lose the case. My guess is the judge will sentence Walker to life without parole.

At least Katron Walker has agreed to not appeal his sentence and his ex-wife, according to prosecutors agrees with the plea arrangement. At least once he is sentenced that will be the end of the story for Katron Walker. He faces a sentence of 45-100 years. His defense attorney still plans to use the mental defect defense when she argues for the minimum sentence for her client.

Sentencing 

September 6, 2009

After three days of testimony from prosecution experts, family members and defense experts the judge sentenced Katron Walker to 95 years in prison for the murder of his son Collin, 4 and the attempted murder of his son Monte, 2. Judge David Bolk could have sentenced Walker to 100 years in prison; however, Bolk sentenced Walker to 95 years.

The defense tried to explain Walker’s history of mental illness and his childhood growing up in a ‘dysfunctional’ family. Walker’s mother, Nancy McClaine, took the stand and pretty much allowed her parenting skills to be torn apart. At one point court had to be adjourned so she could regain her composure. At the end of court that day, Tribune Star reporter Stephanie Salter observed the following interaction in the courtroom hallway:

McClaine and her third husband, Don McClaine, walked toward the stairs to leave, but she began to sob again, her cries echoing off the courthouse rotunda. Teresa Dwyer, Walker’s ex-wife and mother of his children, was perhaps 100 feet away from her former mother-in-law. The two have barely spoken for more than a year, and the division between them had been almost palpable in the courtroom.
But, as if in a trance, Dwyer walked the distance of the hall to McClaine, then wrapped her arms around her. The two women — mothers with broken hearts — wept together as one.¹

Expert defense witnesses claimed Walker suffered from Schizo-affective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and a mood disorder, usually depression.

At the close of the third day of testimony Walker was allowed to address the court:

His phrases and word choices were like oratory from another century. His voice choking, he spoke of hearing “the rhythm of my life through the stethoscope of others’ testimony” and of “the sea of sorrow I’ve inflicted on Teresa.”
That extreme emotion, as well as the wedding ring Walker continues to wear, was in ironic contrast about two hours later. After his sentencing, which includes a no-contact order with Dwyer and their living child, Walker passed his ex-wife on his way out of the courtroom. Sneering, he told her to tell their son, “I’ll be waiting for him.” ²

A defense psychologist testified the reason Katron wanted to murder his children was to save their spirits’ because he felt they would be corrupt if his marriage were to end.

The insanity defense presented during the penalty phase of the trial did not really impress the judge. He did not apply much weight Katron’s history of growing up in a dysfunctional family, his diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder that went untreated, or his meth addiction and that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the murder and attempted murder of his sons. Walker will not be getting out of prison because along with the plea deal he agreed to forefit his appeals. I am going to assume that Walker has been medicated while in prison and stabilized and that he is now clean and sober. If the assumption is correct, then why the snide remark, really a thinly veiled threat to his now ex-wife and his son? Pure evil cannot be medicated. What do you think?

Sources 

IN Amber Alert – Collin & Monte Walker, Missing and Murdered Children Blog, September 17, 2008.

Katron Walker to be Tried Fall 2008, TribStar.com, September 27, 2007.

Lisa Trigg, Court to Call 600 Jurors for Walker Trial, Tribune-Star.com, Last Accessed: June 19, 2009.

IN Man Pleads Guilty to Abducting, Killing Son, WHAS11.com, Last Accessed: June 22, 2009.

Walker Pleads Guilty to Son’s Stabbing Death, WTHR.com, Last Accessed: June 22, 2009.

95-Year Sentence for Indiana Father in Son’s Death, WTHR.com, Last Accessed: September 7, 2009.

1. Stephanie Salter, Stephanie Salter: Notes From Three, Sad, Intense Days in the County Courthouse, Tribune-Star, Last Accessed: September 6, 2009. [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩]