On a summer morning in Indianapolis, the grim discovery of two men's bodies shattered the quiet of an east side neighborhood. Twenty-six-year-old Kendall Howell and 48-year-old Kevin Sargent, both residents of the city, were found deceased just before 6 a.m. on Friday, July 8, 2016. The scene, located in the 900 block of North Oxford Street, near 10th Street and Rural Street, became the focal point of a homicide investigation.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were met
with a perplexing scene. One of the victims was located in the street, while the other was discovered inside a nearby car. Investigators believed the two men had been shot earlier in the evening, but the exact time and location of the shooting remained a mystery. Adding to the puzzle, police did not find any shell casings at the site where the bodies were recovered, leading them to suspect that the shooting occurred elsewhere. A report of shots fired in an area three blocks north a few hours earlier provided a potential lead in the investigation.
In the days following the discovery, the Marion County Coroner's Office confirmed that both Howell and Sargent had died from gunshot wounds. Despite the efforts of homicide detectives to piece together the events leading to their deaths, the initial investigation did not identify any suspects. The lack of witnesses and physical evidence at the scene presented significant challenges to law enforcement. The case remains an unsolved double homicide, leaving the families of Kendall Howell and Kevin Sargent without answers and the perpetrators still at large. The motive behind the killings has never been publicly determined.
