In the early morning hours of January 24, 2019, the life of 43-year-old James 'Mike' Troxal, a male, came to a sudden and violent end in Bloomington, Indiana. For the previous two weeks, Troxal had been residing in the garage of a home on Knightridge Road. On that fateful morning, he entered the main house to get a drink of water. Shortly after he exited the residence, a loud boom shattered the morning quiet.
Troxal was then seen staggering back towards the house, having sustained a fatal gunshot wound to his chest.
The homeowner, 62-year-old Garry Hicks, was identified as the person who shot Troxal. Hicks lived at the residence with his common-law wife and had been suffering from a decline in his mental faculties. This decline led to a state of increasing paranoia, with Hicks becoming convinced that he was going to be the victim of a robbery. In the time leading up to the shooting, he had taken to patrolling his property at night armed with a shotgun. On the morning of the incident, in his paranoid state, he tragically mistook Troxal for a burglar and fired the fatal shot.
During the subsequent investigation into Troxal's death, a neighbor who had been visiting the home at the time of the shooting made a startling discovery. After leaving for a doctor's appointment, she found a shotgun in her car and promptly reported it to the police. The investigation also brought to light Garry Hicks's criminal history, which included prior convictions for aggravated assault with a weapon in both 1995 and 1999. In the wake of the shooting, it was anticipated that Hicks would face charges of murder and being a dangerous felon in possession of a firearm.
