State decides not to file new charges against man in 2018 shootings
May 10—ANDERSON — With Jordan Zirkle scheduled to go on trial in a month in connection with the shooting deaths of two people in 2018, the state has decided not to file additional charges.
Zirkle, 33, was originally charged with Level 1 felony murder, Level 1 felony aiding or inducing murder, and criminal confinement.
Last week, the prosecutor's office filed a motion to amend the charges to include murder; two counts of felony murder; intimidation, Level 5 felony; kidnapping, a Level 6 felony; robbery, a Level 5 felony, and a Level 3 felony charge of aiding or causing criminal confinement.
Deputy Prosecutor Dan Kopp on Monday withdrew the request for the additional charges to be filed.
In an amended charging document, Zirkle is now charged with two Level 1 felony counts of aiding or causing murder.
A charge of criminal confinement with a deadly weapon also was dismissed by the state.
Zirkle is scheduled to go on trial in Madison Circuit Court Division 6 on June 7.
Defense attorney Bryan Williams objected to the additional charges being filed, in citing an Indiana Court of Appeals ruling in which the court denied the filing of amended charges that were filed four days before the trial.
"This is 31 months past the omnibus date," Williams said. "The Court of Appeals said the state had to show a good cause for filing the amended charges.
Zirkle, Brittney Vontress-Cox, Taylor Wheeler and David Roberts are all charged in the fatal shooting of Trinity Parker, 39, and David L. Phillips II, 35, both of Anderson.
A fifth defendant, Daniel Jones, last year entered pleas of guilty to murder and aiding or causing murder and was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
The co-defendants have said Jones is the one who orchestrated the shootings.
They alleged that Jones threatened to shoot them if they talked about the crimes.
Acting on a tip communicated through the Madison County Prosecutor's Office, Madison County Sheriff's Department detectives found Phillips' partially decomposed body on Aug. 13 at the Rangeline Nature Preserve.
The 35-year-old Anderson man had been shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber handgun.
Two days later, Jones, who was already in custody at the Madison County Jail on an unrelated weapons charge, led investigators to an abandoned house just across the Grant County line where Parker's badly decomposed body was found.
The Anderson woman also was shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber handgun, and investigators say she was shot days before Phillips.
Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.
