In the early hours of a Wednesday morning in Vincennes, Indiana, the life of 23-year-old Drew Allen Roach was tragically cut short. On September 18, 2019, Knox County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call about a shooting at a residence on Thunderhill Drive. Inside, they discovered Drew Allen Roach, who had sustained a fatal gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Present at the home was 22-year-old Jacob Samuel Lacoste, also of Vincennes.
Lacoste was immediately taken into custody and became the sole suspect in the shooting. The investigation that followed led to his arrest on a preliminary charge of voluntary manslaughter. An autopsy was performed on Roach, though the specific results were withheld pending the ongoing investigation by the Knox County Sheriff's Department and Indiana State Police.
The legal journey for Jacob Lacoste was a lengthy one. Initially charged with voluntary manslaughter, the charges were later elevated to murder in February 2021. However, the case took another turn in December 2022 when Lacoste pleaded guilty to the original charge of voluntary manslaughter. Lacoste had claimed that he acted in self-defense during the incident.
In January 2023, a judge sentenced 26-year-old Jacob Lacoste to 20 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections for the shooting death of Drew Allen Roach. Following the sentencing for voluntary manslaughter, the murder charge was dismissed. The prosecutor noted that a plea agreement in such a case provided a degree of certainty for both sides, bringing a close to the nearly three-and-a-half-year legal battle.
