IN IN - Cary Owsley, 49, Bartholomew County, 7 April 2013

A Bartholomew County sheriff's deputy whose handling of evidence in a death investigation last year prompted public protests and the exhumation of a body is again being accused of improperly involving himself in a case involving his family members.

This time, it's Deputy E. Dewayne Janes' boss who's leveling the accusations. Sheriff Mark Gorbett announced on Friday that he had suspended Janes with pay and has filed formal charges with the sheriff's merit board to fire him...

Gorbett said Janes responded to a non-emergency call on Aug. 31 that centered around a complaint involving Janes' ex-wife and sons... Janes previously showed up at two death investigations at the homes of family members. Both were ruled suicides, but one of the incidents led to sanctions against Janes.

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Bartholomew County, Ind., sheriff's investigators responded to a woman's 911 call that her husband shot himself in their home. Upon arrival, deputies found the body of a man in an overturned chair, lying in a pool of blood. He had been shot in the chest.

Sheriff's investigators let the ex-husband of the woman who made the 911 call to work the investigation. Law enforcement experts consulted by The Indianapolis Star say that was alarming. That decision would taint the investigation and raise troubling questions about conflicts in small-town law enforcement -- conflicts that prompted family members to suspect racial prejudice, hold protests, and fight to exhume the body.

In addition, at least one of Deputy Dewayne Janes' two sons had been quarreling with the deceased man. And the gun? It was once owned by Janes.

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Last summer, The Star reviewed more than 60 pages of investigative documents, photos and a 911 call from the Owsley death investigation and spoke with a trio of law enforcement experts about the case. The Star’s reporting revealed numerous problems with the way the case was handled.

The most glaring problem was that Deputy E. DeWayne Janes was allowed to work the death scene. Janes was once married to Owsley’s wife, the only person besides Owsley in the home at the time of the shooting. Janes once owned the gun found near Owsley’s corpse. And Owsley’s family members say Janes’ two adult sons, who were also at the death scene, had a contentious relationship with their stepfather.

Yet Janes helped move the body and handle evidence, including the gun. No autopsy was performed at the time of death.

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A Bartholomew County sheriff's deputy retired days before he was slated to appear before a board that would determine whether he was to be fired for involving himself into yet another case involving his family.

The Sheriff's Office announced Tuesday that Deputy E. Dewayne Janes, whose handling of evidence in a death investigation last year prompted public protests and the exhumation of a body, would retire at the end of the year...

The first death investigation concerned the 2010 death of 28-year-old Keri Sue Janes, the wife of Janes' son. The Columbus Police Department investigated the scene and police say Janes, a deputy, did not work the scene, but showed up to offer moral support to the family.

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Cheryl Jackson doesn’t exactly know what happened to her brother, but she’s confident about what didn’t happen. Jackson said Cary Owsley did not kill himself in 2013 with a gun belonging to a Bartholomew County Sheriff’s deputy who was the ex-husband of his wife and the father of the sons who Owsley was not getting along with...

“There’s nothing worse than running up against officials who can say what they want, even against the facts, and not be able to do anything about it,” said Jackson. “Had I not had media connections the story would have gone away”...

“We had a lot of help outside this community,” said Jackson before a community meeting at God’s House Missionary Baptist Church. “We need leadership inside this community to be able to continue to drive the new sheriff and the administration to continue to look at a case that has admittedly failed, admittedly has all these faux paus in it. We want them to keep putting the pressure on the sheriff in order to get the case reopened.”

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A newly-elected Central Indiana sheriff has requested that the FBI take a second look at a botched death investigation that dogged his predecessor.

On Friday, Bartholomew County Sheriff Matthew Myers asked the FBI to review the Cary Owsley death investigation for possible abuses of police authority...

The letter asks the FBI’s Indianapolis field office to review the entire Owsley case, “along with any new or never presented facts” provided by members of Owsley’s family.

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A trial date for a federal lawsuit against Bartholomew County officials over the investigation into a 2013 shooting death has been postponed for a year to give attorneys more time to prepare.

In a joint agreement approved by the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Indiana, attorneys in the Logan Owsley federal court case have moved the trial from Jan. 9, 2017, to Jan. 22, 2018...

The Owsley lawsuit alleges obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice based on discrimination, failure to intervene, hindering access to courts and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the aftermath of the investigation into Cary Owsley’s death, originally ruled a suicide by Bartholomew County Coroner Larry Fisher.

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