Jay Given

In the rough-and-tumble world of East Chicago, Indiana, politics, Jay Given was a master of the game. A 51-year-old attorney, husband, and father of three, Given was a prominent political powerbroker, known as a clever behind-the-scenes operator who could make or break careers. He had served as the city attorney from 1963 to 1974 and was an advisor to Mayor Robert Pastrick, whom he had helped elect. His son, Jeffrey, remembered him as a man who was intimately familiar with the people in power and knew the skeletons in their closets, a knowledge that made him a formidable figure in the blue-collar community.

On the night of May 15, 1981, Given was working the room at a Las Vegas-themed fundraiser at the East Chicago Elks Lodge on Magoun Avenue. The event was for Lake County Commissioner N. Atterson Spann, who was considering a mayoral run against Given's former ally, Mayor Pastrick. Given and Pastrick had a falling out years earlier, and Given's presence was seen as a move to build a new coalition. After mingling for a couple of hours and winning $300 in a ticket drawing, Given said his goodbyes and headed for the exit just after 11:00 p.m., intending to step outside for a smoke.

He never made it out the door. In the small lobby vestibule, as he prepared to leave, an assassin shot Jay Given once in the back of the head at point-blank range. The single.45-caliber bullet exited through his forehead, shattered the glass of the front door, struck a brick building across the street, and came to rest in the roadway. The sound of the gunshot sent the hundreds of fundraiser attendees into a panic. In the chaotic rush to flee the building, some people trampled over Given's body, which was found face down near the entrance with his car keys and a cigarette lighter nearby. In the immediate aftermath, no eyewitnesses came forward to identify the shooter.

The East Chicago Police Department began an investigation that would soon be mired in suspicion and intrigue. Detectives recovered the spent bullet from the street and a shell casing from the lobby floor. An inspector, Paul DiCharia, noted the bullet was in remarkably good condition and locked the evidence in his desk drawer for other investigators to see before it was sent to the evidence vault. Four days later, he discovered both the bullet and the casing had been deliberately damaged; someone had taken a sharp instrument to the bullet to mar its identifying marks and had punched a hole through the primer of the casing, seemingly in an attempt to thwart a ballistics match.

Despite the damage, an FBI crime lab analysis identified the weapon as a rare.45-caliber Detonics 1911-style Combat Master pistol. The investigation eventually determined that the shell casing was linked to one of only 58 such pistols with a specially modified ejecting mechanism. One of those guns belonged to East Chicago's own Deputy Police Chief, John Cardona. Cardona was a member of a Hispanic political organization that was at odds with Given's faction. Several people placed Cardona at the Elks Lodge that night, and he reportedly gave different reasons for his presence, at one point admitting he was there to watch Given.

Investigators learned that Given had intended to make changes in the police department if his political allies came to power, and Cardona was one of the people who would have been demoted. One witness recalled seeing Given in a heated argument in the lobby with a man matching Cardona's description just before the gunshot. Cardona, however, maintained he was in the lodge's bar at the time of the murder, a claim other witnesses could not corroborate. He failed a polygraph test and was dismissed from the police force after refusing to take a second one. Cardona always maintained his innocence and was never charged with the crime.

Over the decades, the unsolved murder has haunted the community and the investigators involved. Former East Chicago Police Chief Gus Flores, the primary investigator, has long regretted that an anonymous woman with a Spanish accent who called in the shooting was never interviewed. Given's wife, Phyllis, told reporters she believed her husband's death was a mix of a political conspiracy and a spontaneous confrontation.

The case has remained a persistent subject of speculation in Northwest Indiana. As of November 2026, more than 45 years after the execution-style killing, the case remains an open and unsolved homicide. The Lake County Prosecutor's Office announced it was conducting a review of the cold case, offering a sliver of hope that the gunshot that has echoed through the region for decades might one day be answered with justice.