Nearly a decade after he was murdered on the northwest side of Indianapolis, the man who killed Thomas Johnson has been sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Darrin Shores Jr. was charged in April with the Nov. 27, 2008, murder of Johnson at the Rosewood Common Apartments.
Shores had been identified as a possible suspect, but the case had gone cold by June 2016, when an informant offered information to the FBI Safe Streets Task Force.
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The following month – with a new lead provided by the informant – police made contact with a woman who said she was with Shores the night Johnson was shot.
After prosecutors filed charges against Shores in April, police tracked him to Lithia Springs. Georgia, where he’d been living and working.
On Dec. 6, a Marion County jury found Shores guilty of murder. He was sentenced Thursday to 55 years in prison.
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“It is our hope that we can bring justice to the families of all homicide victims,” Prosecutor Terry Curry said in a statement after Shores’ conviction. “However, it is particularly gratifying that the family of Thomas Johnson will now have the finality of this conviction after nine years of uncertainty regarding the circumstances of his death.”
More than 80 homicide cases from this year remain open. If you have information that could help solve one of them, police urge you to contact Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS.
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