 Anthony Bedolla (Photo: Indianapolis Star)
About 200 people were in the club or parking lot at the time of the shooting. A witness known in court documents as G.B.R. said he was walking behind Espinoza at the time of the shooting. He said the shooter was dressed like a cowboy and wore sideburns that came to a point. G.B.R. said the shooter and his accomplice fled in a black Honda Civic.
Other witnesses, while not seeing the shooting, also said the assailants drove away in a dark Civic.
Several days later, a woman known as S.S.C. gave the police a different description of the events. She said the shooter wore a white polo shirt and jeans and had no facial hair or cowboy hat. She also said he fled in a red Ford Expedition. At the time, S.S.C. was working as a confidential informant for the Indianapolis police, who were investigating a gang known as Sur 13. Just after the shooting, S.S.C. called a police detective on his cell phone to tell him of the incident.
After giving this description, S.S.C. would later tell detectives that she recognized the shooter by sight but not by name. Two weeks later, on March 21, 2009, S.S.C. called detectives from the club. She said the man was at the bar. Police arrived and arrested 25-year-old Anthony Bedolla, a Mexican citizen, charging him with murder and possession of cocaine.
During the initial investigation, the true-crime series Crime 360 was tagging along with the detectives from the Indianapolis Metro Police Department (IMPD). The show’s premise was built around digital imagery, crime-scene mapping, and other visual effects. The show’s producers gave the police state-of-the-art mapping equipment and flew the detectives to Texas for interviews.
An episode entitled “Hunted” aired on July 23, 2009. It portrayed Bedolla as a “trained killer,” and referenced guns, drugs and hitmen. The episode ran several times on the A&E cable network in the Indianapolis market. Al Serrano, one of Bedolla’s attorneys, would later tell the Indianapolis Star, “It concerned us because usually we don’t get that much attention for a pending investigation, at least at that point. We thought it was possible that it would upset a jury pool.”
Just before Bedolla’s trial began, Bedolla’s attorneys moved for a bench trial, which was held before Judge Robert Altice of Marion County Superior Court in February 2010.
S.S.C. testified that she saw Bedolla argue with Espinoza in the club and later push Espinoza. S.S.C. said she and her boyfriend, J.R., were leaving the club at closing time, walking to their vehicle, when she saw Espinoza and Bedolla in the parking lot. She said Bedolla had a gun in his hand and was shouting at Espinoza about money he owed Bedolla. Bedolla then shot Espinoza, she said. Bedolla’s attorneys cross-examined S.S.C. about her role as a confidential informant, and whether her testimony might earn her additional benefits from the police.
The state said that when S.S.C. witnessed the murder, she was not working for the police; she was just at the club with her boyfriend.
J.R. testified that he saw Bedolla in the parking lot with a gun and saw him fire the weapon. He said he did not see what Bedolla was shooting at.
G.B.R. testified that he followed Espinoza into the parking lot, and saw Espinoza talking to a man who was not Bedolla. He said he saw that man pull out a gun and then heard shots.
Detective Ed Brickley testified about the investigation. He said that he did not talk with S.S.C. outside of her recorded statement. He also testified that he did not conduct any substantive investigation after Bedolla’s arrest.
Prior to Bedolla’s arrest, the police had requested ballistics testing to compare evidence from the Espinoza shooting with two other incidents. The testing didn’t reveal any connections, and Brickley testified at a pre-trial deposition that the testing was done “on a whim.”
Judge Altice convicted Bedolla of murder and the possession charge on February 9, 2010, and later sentenced him to 45 years in prison.
After Judge Altice’s verdict, Bedolla said: “I’m innocent. I want justice to prevail. I want my freedom. Why are they going to punish me for something I have not done?”
At sentencing, Bedolla’s other attorney, Richard Hagenmaier, said, “Judge, all I really want to say is to the victim’s family, we’re obviously sorry about your son. I would reiterate the family has said that we don’t feel like justice is being done today, because the man responsible for this crime is not here today. As far as to the defendant and his family, I just simply want to apologize to them because obviously I didn’t do enough—a good enough job in this case because we are here.”
Bedolla appealed, arguing there had been insufficient evidence to convict and that he had been improperly denied a request to attend the pre-trial depositions of S.S.C. and J.R. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction on January 20, 2011.
In 2016, Bedolla moved for post-conviction relief. His new attorney, Cynthia Carter, said in the motion that the state’s cooperation with the Crime 360 producers violated Bedolla’s right to a fair trial because it falsely depicted him as a hit man and “broadcast unsubstantiated theories that have nothing to do with reality.”
Brickley had testified at trial: “It’s not a sworn under oath show. It is made for TV. And if there’s things that they want us to add to it to make the show seem a little more exciting, or they want us—if I said something one way [they] may want me to say it another way for TV, so they could stop at a commercial break or something along those lines. But we go back and reenact and do things that they want us to say in the show basically. But it’s based on a case, but it is not an accurate depiction of that case necessarily.”
The motion also said that the state had failed to disclose S.S.C.’s substantial history of involvement and cooperation with federal law-enforcement and whether she had been a reliable witness.
In addition, the motion said Bedolla’s trial attorneys had been ineffective for waiving a jury trial, failing to present evidence that undermined some of S.S.C.’s testimony about Bedolla’s activity prior to the shooting, and not challenging the probable-cause warrant, which lacked sufficient detail.
An evidentiary hearing was held on January 11, 2017. While in the Marion County Jail awaiting transport back to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, Bedolla found himself in a holding cell with an inmate known as M.B.
The two men talked. M.B. said he had met S.S.C. in 2010 and had a brief relationship with her. He said that S.S.C. told him that Bedolla didn’t kill Espinoza. According to M.B., S.S.C. said that J.R., her then-boyfriend, was the real killer.
Bedolla amended his petition on April 3, 2017, to include this new evidence.
Carter moved to depose M.B., but she ran into problems after M.B. said he would not give a statement without his attorney present. At a status conference on September 20, 2017, Magistrate Judge Amy Barbar closed the evidentiary record. Carter asked to make an offer of proof prior to obtaining the deposition. The judge denied the request. Carter pushed back. The judge threatened her with contempt.
Bedolla appealed. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Barbar’s ruling, but the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the decision on May 28, 2019, allowing Carter to proceed with the deposition.
“Part of a judge’s job is to listen,” the court wrote. “When a judge refuses to hear a party’s offer to prove, she not only abdicates the duty to listen, but she calls into question the principle of fundamental fairness, which requires that parties, particularly those bearing the burden of proof, receive every reasonable opportunity to make their case.”
In 2020, after the deposition was taken, Judge Barbar denied Bedolla’s petition, and the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed her ruling on June 14, 2021. It said that M.B.’s evidence wasn’t sufficient, as it merely impeached S.S.C. The court also said that Bedolla’s attorneys had acted strategically in their decisions to seek a bench trial and not call certain witnesses.
In 2022, the Exoneration Justice Clinic at Notre Dame University’s Law School, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), and the Exoneration Project began a collaborative re-examination of Bedolla’s conviction. The investigation included interviewing new witnesses and examining the files of police and prosecutors.
The Notre Dame clinic’s work in this case was funded in part by a grant from the Mexican government that established the Program for the Defense of Mexican Nationals in Criminal Matters at the university.
On August 13, 2024, Jimmy Gurulé, the director of the Notre Dame clinic, and Elliot Slosar of the Exoneration Project filed an amended motion for post-conviction relief. The motion said that police and prosecutors had failed to adequately investigate leads and disclose exculpatory evidence that pointed to alternate suspects, undermined the testimony of S.S.C., or bolstered Bedolla’s claim of innocence.
The evidence included:
- Records detailing the strong possibility that a man named L.S., nicknamed “El Gallo” (The Rooster) was a viable suspect. Police also investigated L.S. in connection with another murder, and J.R. told investigators that L.S. was an associate of S.S.C. In addition, L.S. was photographed at the club on the night of the murder, and he was wearing clothes and had facial hair matching G.B.R.’s description. He also drove a black Civic. A woman known as L.T. said in an affidavit that one of L.S.’s children told her that S.S.C. was paid to lie about Bedolla’s involvement.
- An affidavit from A.R., the club’s manager, which said that L.S., whom he only knew by his nickname, was selling drugs at the club and was seen arguing with a woman on the dance floor. A.R. said he told police when Bedolla was arrested that they had the wrong person. A.R. said that Brickley didn’t return his telephone calls or meet with him to hear his account of what happened. A.R. testified at one of Bedolla’s post-conviction hearings, but he was not asked about L.S. because Bedolla’s attorney didn’t know L.S. had been a person of interest.
- Videos from the club dance floor did not show Espinoza getting into an argument over a woman, as prosecutors suggested was a possible motive for the shooting. While the state had turned over photographs taken at the club, it hadn’t turned over the videos.
- Police interviewed G.B.R. for more than an hour before turning on the recording equipment and taking an official statement. Detective Brickley’s notes of that initial interview weren’t turned over to the defense.
- Hand-written notes in a probable-cause affidavit that said the shooter was left-handed. That was crossed out after Bedolla’s arrest, as he was right-handed.
The motion also asserted that Brickley testified falsely when he said that his taped interview with S.S.C was the entirety of their interaction. It wasn’t. From S.S.C., Brickley had learned of a possible connection between Espinoza’s murder and the two other shootings that led to the request for a ballistics comparison. In addition, according to the motion, Brickley testified falsely at a pre-trial deposition about his reasons for ordering that test. It wasn’t on a “whim,” but rather tied to S.S.C.’s new information about these shootings. This false statement, the motion said, “turned out to be a successful diversion to defense preparation.”
In addition, the motion said that the police recovered a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun in 2012 from a man named G.L.R. The weapon was tested in 2013, and the crime laboratory “matched” the weapon’s casings to those found at the Espinoza crime scene. G.L.R., who matched G.B.R.’s description of the shooter, was released and deported to Mexico. The police department was told of this new information, but it was not relayed to prosecutors or Bedolla’s post-conviction attorneys.
In the state’s response, also filed on August 13, Jessica Cicchini, a deputy prosecuting attorney and co-director of the CIU, agreed that Bedolla was entitled to a new trial, because the state had not provided Bedolla’s trial attorneys with the police records on L.S., other alternate suspects, and the potential connection between Espinoza’s murder and the other shootings.
The response said the state no longer had confidence in the integrity of Bedolla’s conviction, as the disclosure violations “precluded [Bedolla] from pursuing a defense and the withheld material bolstered the defense’s argument that someone else was responsible for Erick Espinoza’s death.”
The state’s answer said that although the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office had itself never received these police records, “the State admits it had a duty to ask to see the file maintained by IMPD. The prosecution cannot simply rest on what it is in possession of; instead, under Supreme Court authority it has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf, including the police.”
On August 20, 2024, Judge Marie Kern vacated Bedolla’s convictions and dismissed the charges. Bedolla was released from prison.
“Through our joint collaborative efforts, we have addressed, confronted, and corrected a tragic miscarriage of justice,” said Gurulé. “In wrongful conviction cases, not only is an innocent person convicted and deprived of his freedom for a crime that he did not commit, but the real killer remains at large and is not held accountable. So, really, it’s a double tragedy and injustice to society.”
– Ken Otterbourg
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