CROWN POINT — A Merrillville woman was issued a 3-year sentence for shooting and killing her husband while they were in a physical struggle over a gun after a night out for her 41st birthday in 2021.
Nakeyia Anderson, 43, will serve two years of her sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction and one year on probation, Lake Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez said in court Wednesday. She was convicted of reckless homicide after a jury trial in November and has been awaiting her sentencing since.
"This is a horrible, tragic case," Vasquez said after issuing his sentence. "It was avoidable."
The couple was in an altercation on July 18, 2021 outside their home on the 5900 block of Harrison Street when Nakeyia Anderson pulled out a firearm from her vehicle and the two struggled for the gun before it went off in her 44-year-old husband Tihomas Anderson's direction, killing him. Detectives who arrived at the scene said the inside of their home was in disarray with alcohol bottles strewn across the floor, pictures knocked off the wall, blinds damaged and a mounted television partially pulled from the wall.
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Vasquez said her lack of criminal history warrants a sentence lower than the advisory sentence. However, the nature of her conduct was certainly reckless and warrants prison time, as opposed to a suspended sentence on probation. Reckless homicide is a level five felony, which carries a possibility of between one and six years in prison. The advisory sentence is three years.
Prior to the sentencing, Tihomas Anderson's sisters made statements to Vasquez and asked for Nakeyia Anderson to receive the maximum possible sentence.
"My brother is the victim, not her," Tihomas Anderson's sister Nakea said. "She claimed it was an accident ... she shed not one tear when he was laying on the ground dying."
"We are still crying, my family," Nakea Anderson said.
Defense attorney Scott King said the circumstances of the situation do not warrant an aggravated sentence. In addition to Nakeyia Anderson's lack of criminal history, she has eight children who need her, some of who are underage or have a disability. He said her conduct and response to the shooting was appropriate because she admitted to police what happened after the fact.
"(She was) not trying to cover up, not trying to blame others," King said. "You saw her reaction. It was not a reaction consistent with a guilty mind."
Deputy Prosecutor Tara Villarreal said body-worn camera footage showed to the jury during trial projects a different narrative. She said the footage showed Nakeyia Anderson standing over her husband's body and telling him to get up.
"You shot me," he said to her in response.
The couple got into an argument on the way home from her birthday celebration at a club and it continued once they arrived at their residence. Nakeyia Anderson decided she wanted to leave their home, but Tihomas grabbed her keys and entered the front seat of the car, police said. She reached underneath the passenger seat to grab her gun out of the vehicle. Tihomas then reached for the firearm, according to court documents, and a struggle ensued, during which a fatal shot was fired.
"Tihomas would still be alive today if she had not gone and grabbed that gun," Villarreal said.