Appeals court upholds Yorktown man's murder conviction
MUNCIE, Ind. — A state appeals court has upheld a Yorktown man's murder conviction.
Last March, 33-year-old Justin Ryan Bennett was sentenced to 68 years in prison by Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees.
A jury in September 2020 had found Bennett guilty of murder in the slaying — the previous February — of 24-year-old Chase Woolums of Muncie.
The victim has been gunned down outside the Muncie Walmart store at 1501 E. 29th St.
Witnesses said Bennett had earlier threatened to harm Woolums, who was dating his former girlfriend.
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The Muncie man — armed at the time with a 20-inch metal bar — was shot in the back as he ran from Bennett's pickup truck in the Walmart parking lot. Authorities believed Woolums — who came to the parking lot to pick up clothing from his estranged wife — fled after realizing Bennett had a gun.
At his trial, Bennett tried to persuade jurors he had made a "split-second decision" and fired in self defense.
He was apprehended the night of the slaying after leading police on a chase. The jury also found the Yorktown man guilty of resisting law enforcement and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon.
(The Yorktown man had been prohibited from possessing firearms after a 2017 conviction for aggravated battery in Cass County.)
In his appeal, Bennett contended were was insufficient evidence to support his murder conviction.
In a 3-0 decision issued this week, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.
In that ruling, Judge Rudolph Pyle III wrote that the only evidence suggesting "Bennett's reaction was reasonable was contained in Bennett's testimony."
"The jury, however, had no obligation to credit this evidence and did not," he added, concluding there was "sufficient evidence to rebut Bennett's claim of self defense, and therefore, to support (his) murder conviction."
Incarcerated at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility south of Terre Haute, Bennett has a projected release date in August 2070, according to a state Department of Correction website.
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Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Yorktown man's murder conviction upheld
