On April 30, 2018, Indianapolis police discovered the body of 35-year-old Anthony "Tony" Cline in a home on the southeast side of the city, contradicting reports of a death in 2016. Cline had been reported missing by his family on April 24, 2018, after he failed to return home from his job as a delivery driver for a Lowe's home improvement store near the Greenwood Park Mall. His disappearance sparked a frantic week-long search by loved ones, who utilized mobile phone tracking to locate his pickup truck abandoned in a church parking lot. The vehicle was found just a block away from the residence of 42-year-old Dwight Shotts, a man described as an old fishing buddy of the victim.
The investigation took a grim turn when dispatchers received two 911 calls regarding Shotts on the afternoon of April 30. In one call, Shotts claimed to be suicidal and admitted there was a deceased individual inside his home on Tabor Street. He told the operator that he had panicked and placed the body in his bathtub, where it had remained for several days. Upon arriving at the scene, officers encountered Shotts, who surrendered peacefully, and subsequently discovered Cline’s body in the bathroom, wrapped in plastic and a tarp. The Marion County Coroner’s Office later ruled the cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head.
Detectives questioned Shotts, who initially provided conflicting accounts of the events leading to Cline's death. While he admitted to the 911 operator that he had shot the man, he later retracted this confession during police interrogation, alleging instead that an unknown "shooter" had killed Cline over a drug debt involving OxyContin pills and had handed Shotts the weapon before fleeing. Shotts claimed he did not contact authorities immediately out of fear. Despite his denial of pulling the trigger, investigators focused on the inconsistencies in his story and the physical evidence found at the scene, including a loaded revolver recovered from his garage.
Dwight Shotts was arrested and charged with murder. During the subsequent legal proceedings, prosecutors argued that Shotts was solely responsible for the fatal shooting. In December 2021, a jury found Shotts guilty of murder after a three-day trial. The following month, in January 2022, he was sentenced to 55 years in the Indiana Department of Correction for the crime.
