In the bitter cold of an Indianapolis morning on January 29, 1980, the body of 31-year-old male taxi driver Kenneth Warren Chambers was discovered in an alley off East Fall Creek Parkway. He was found nude, except for a pair of socks, his body frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. An autopsy would later reveal the cause of death to be a single small-caliber gunshot wound to his right temple.
The investigation into his death would unravel a story of a robbery gone horribly wrong, leading to a decades-long legal battle for one of the men responsible.
Investigators quickly learned that Chambers, an employee of the Northside Cab Company, had been dispatched to the 1800 block of North College Avenue around 1:30 a.m. on the day of his murder. The call for the cab had been placed by a barmaid at the M & J Social Club at the request of a man named Gary Burris. Burris, along with two accomplices, James Thompson and Emmett Merriweather, were the individuals who entered Chambers' taxi that fateful night. The motive appeared to be robbery, as Chambers was robbed of $40 before being forced to strip in the freezing temperatures.
The investigation led police to Burris and his companions. Following his arrest, Gary Burris was charged with the murder of Kenneth Chambers. During his trial, evidence was presented showing that after robbing the taxi driver, Burris had forced him to remove his clothes and then shot him at point-blank range. Thompson and Merriweather also faced charges for their roles in the crime.
Gary Burris was ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He spent years on death row, appealing his conviction and sentence. His appeals, which raised issues about jury selection and the sufficiency of the charges against him, were ultimately unsuccessful. On November 20, 1997, Gary Burris was executed by lethal injection for the murder of Kenneth Chambers. His accomplice, James Thompson, was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison, while Emmett Merriweather received a 15-year prison sentence for his involvement.
