Man guilty of chopping up Michigan City roommate, disposing him in garbage
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — A man was found guilty Thursday for killing his roommate, chopping him up and disposing parts of his body in the trash.
The investigation began on Aug. 29, 2022 when Michigan City police received a call at their front desk. The man on the other end of the line, John Hallett, started admitting to a grisly crime, according to court documents.
Hallett, 54, stated that on Nov. 25, 2017, he murdered his roommate Paul Gonzalez while living together in a house, located in the 1000 block of West 9th Street, designed for those who were homeless.
Hallett told officers he struck Gonzalez, 64, with a crutch and choked him to death from behind because he claimed Gonzalez was stealing his mail.
Gonzalez’s body was kept in the basement for nearly two months. Hallett then explained to police he used a hacksaw to cut up his body, placed the parts into trash bags and then disposed the bags into a garbage can.
Police spoke with the Housing Opportunities, the organization that helped them find housing, and an employee told a detective she thought it was odd that Hallett told her Gonzalez moved — yet all his possessions were still in the home.
Detectives found out that social security checks were being deposited into his account still, but the last withdrawal was on Nov. 23, 2017.
In Sept. 2022, a search warrant was signed to bring a cadaver dog into the home in an effort to find signs of human decomposition. The dog began “barking profusely” in the cellar — the area of the home where Hallett told police he dismembered Gonzalez.
Another search warrant was signed to collect samples of the concrete floor from the basement, according to court documents.
Lab testing from a university in Indianapolis showed that there was something decomposing in the cellar at some point and time.
An arrest warrant was signed for murder and abuse of a corpse in 2023 following the lab testing coming back. Authorities arrested him in Cambridge, Massachusetts in August of last year, according to multiple reports.
Hallett was found guilty Thursday night following three hours of jury deliberations.
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