In the late hours of a Sunday evening in Gary, Indiana, a sequence of violent events unfolded, culminating in the death of 27-year-old Dion Clayton. On May 4, 2020, police were drawn to a Save Gas Station at the corner of 45th and Broadway by the discovery of approximately 15 shell casings. A grim trail of blood led them away from the station to the intersection of 46th and Broadway, where they found Clayton, who had been fatally shot.
The investigation into the shooting that claimed
Dion Clayton's life, and wounded two other men, eventually led to the arrest of a suspect. Marquis D. Young, 31, was charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder in December 2020. The case against him was built on what his attorney would later call a 'magic cigarette.' Two days after the shooting, police found a cigarette butt in a frequently used alley near the gas station. DNA evidence from this cigarette was matched to Young.
A Lake County jury convicted Young, and he was sentenced to 115 years in prison. However, in a significant turn of events, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned Young's murder and attempted murder convictions in May 2022. The appellate court's 2-1 decision cited a lack of sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Young was the shooter. The court noted that while security footage captured a person who potentially resembled Young discarding a cigarette, police could not confirm it was the same cigarette butt that was later found and tested for DNA. The court ultimately concluded that the evidence presented did not definitively place Young at the scene of the crime.
