Surviving victim testifies after opening arguments in Austin Ousley murder trial

EVANSVILLE — Prosecutors and 19-year-old Austin Ousley’s legal counsel presented their opening arguments to jurors Tuesday, with the state claiming that Ousley shot two brothers last year in a cold-blooded attempt to take their lives and Ousley’s defense arguing he was a startled teenager responding to what he perceived to be a threat.

Ousley, 19, is standing trial for the 2023 double shooting that killed Shawn Wildt and severely wounded Shawn’s brother, Chad Wildt. While opening arguments had been scheduled for Monday, an hours-long effort to seat a jury delayed the proceedings.

In a standing-room-only courtroom, lead prosecutor Heath Tuley approached a lectern just before 8:40 a.m. Tuesday and laid out the narrative he hopes will show Ousley committed felony murder, attempted murder, burglary and trespassing.

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While Ousley is alleged to have committed those offenses on Feb. 27, 2023, Tuley began by taking jurors back to the year 1919, when the Wildt family opened a farming business that would ultimately see them manage considerable acreage in both Vanderburgh and Posey Counties.

The grandfather who started that business grew up in a small, white farmhouse located at 5100 Cypress Dale Road, Tuley said. And it’s that farmhouse that became a crime scene last year when the Wildt brothers responded to a string of trespassing incidents at the property and confronted Ousley, who had entered the farmhouse with a 17-year-old friend.

“They went down there in order to talk to them,” Tuley told jurors about the brothers’ actions that day.

Shawn and Chad Wildt were no strangers to trespassers and, according to prosecutors, the two planned on telling teens to vacate the property and never come back, lest the Wildts turn them over to the police.

“In the middle of giving that spiel, the defendant pulls out a handgun and shoots Chad in the face,” Tuley said. Ousley then shot Shawn Wildt in the back, killing him almost instantly, according to Tuley.

Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office detectives later said neither brother was armed.

Ousley and the friend fled the scene, with Ousley dropping the 17-year-old off at Reitz High School on Evansville’s West Side. Later, while driving around town, Tuley said Ousley sent a video-recorded confession via social media.

By the evening of Feb. 27, 2023, Ousley had attempted to take his own life. But he would survive the self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head, and a judge later found Ousley competent to stand trial.

Defense attorney Chris Lenn delivered the opening argument on behalf of Ousley, telling jurors that he agreed with many of the facts the state planned to present, including that Ousley shot Chad and Shawn Wildt.

“This case is not going to result in anyone winning,” Lenn said. The attorney later described the case as “a perfect storm that resulted in disaster.”

The defense plans to make the argument that Chad and Shawn Wildt attacked Ousley, whom Lenn described as a “gentle giant” who “never bullied anybody.” Lenn claims Ousley and his friend entered the farmhouse to take photographs and conduct “urban exploration,” and that Ousley never planned to shoot anyone that day.

Lenn also said during his opening that jurors would hear from Ousley themselves, as he plans to testify in his own defense.

And whether Ousley can claim he shot the Wildt brothers in self-defense will be a question for jurors to decide, Lenn argued, after reviewing all of the evidence. Prosecutors have repeatedly dismissed the notion that Ousley can make a self-defense claim, arguing that his alleged act of burglary precludes such a defense under Indiana law.

Jurors would on Tuesday hear testimony directly refuting the claim that Ousley opened fire after he was attacked. Chad Wildt, who survived the ordeal after a mass blood transfusion and multiple surgeries, tearfully recounted on Tuesday what he experienced on Feb. 27, 2023.

'I got shot:' Surviving victim testifies at Ousley trial

Under questioning from Tuley, Chad Wildt explained that he had worked for his family’s farming business since he was a teenager and continued to do so after he graduated high school. During that time, he’d amassed experience dealing with trespassers, who sometimes ran their trucks through the Wildt’s fields, destroying crops, or otherwise entered their farmland without permission.

Typically, the Wildts would “try to find out who it is, confront them about it,” Chad Wildt said. “Tell them, ‘Don’t ever come back,’ and that’s about it.”

In January 2023, a neighboring farmer had told the Wildts that one of the doors leading to the Cypress Dale Road farmhouse had been “busted in,” Chad Wildt recalled. After a series of succeeding break-ins, he set up two remote-operated trail cameras to try and capture photographs of the trespassers.

The cameras worked. Among the images they recorded were photographs of a young man and his dog entering the property. The man appeared to be armed with a handgun in some of the photographs, and the Wildt family shared those images with friends in the hopes of identifying the figure in the photos.

A person who reviewed the images suspected one of the trespassers to be Austin Ousley, according to Chad Wildt's wife, Holly.

On Feb. 27, 2023, Chad Wildt said Holly called him, notifying him that the cameras had activated. “Somebody was there,” Chad Wildt said. He and his brother were finishing up their day’s work at a nearby property and decided to drive to the farmhouse to confront the trespassers.

When Chad and Shawn Wildt arrived, they parked in front of Ousley’s red pickup truck. Then they entered the farmhouse through a side door.

“We hollered for them, and I can’t remember if they came from upstairs or from the bathroom,” Chad Wildt testified. “I told them they were a bunch of dumbasses… (that) I got your license plate number… Now you’re f----d.”

That’s the last thing Chad Wildt remembers saying to Ousley and his friend.

“What happened next?” Tuley asked.

“I got shot,” Chad Wildt replied.

The force of the bullet knocked him out for what felt like 10-to-15 minutes, he said. When Chad Wildt came to, he stumbled out of the farmhouse unaware of what had happened or where his brother was.

“I just went down to the road and laid in the road, hoping somebody would see me,” Chad Wildt said with tears in his eyes. A passerby, who later testified Tuesday, saw Chad Wildt and dialed 911.

Bullet fragments remained lodged in Chad Wildt's neck and mouth as he testified Tuesday, causing him considerable pain more than one year after the shooting. And just before 11:30 a.m., he positively identified Ousley, who stood up from his chair, as the man who shot him.

Lenn cross examined Chad Wildt for the defense, directly asking him if he had “punched (Ousley) in the face" before the shooting.

“No,” Chad Wildt calmly replied.

Lenn asked Chad Wildt if he or his brother had ever threatened to "kill" Ousley. Again, Chad Wildt calmly said, "No."

During the cross examination, Lenn sought to establish that the Wildts had not taken the proper steps to lawfully trespass Ousley. Neither Chad nor Shawn Wildt had identified themselves as property owners or caretakers when they entered the farmhouse, which lacked any “no trespassing signs,” Lenn said.

The trial is expected to run through the end of the week and could feature testimony from dozens of witnesses, according to court documents filed in the case. After the state concludes presenting its evidence, Ousley’s defense attorneys will make their own case to jurors, during which Lenn expects Ousley to testify.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Second day of Austin Ousley murder trial in Evansville