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    • The codefendant testifies that he saw Myers kill one of the three homicide victims
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    The codefendant testifies that he saw Myers kill one of the three homicide victims

    Online Niel Posted on

    MUNCIE, Ind. — His co-defendant testified Friday that he saw Devin Xavier Myers kill a 69-year-old Muncie man in an execution-style shooting.

    Myers — charged with multiple counts of murder, along with other charges that include armed robbery and criminal confinement — is on trial in Delaware Circuit Court 5.

    The 30-year-old Muncie man is accused of killing three members of a local family over a two-day period in July 2022. The case is expected to go to a jury next week.

    On Friday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Zach Craig presented the testimony of Daniel Jones Jr., a 29-year-old Muncie man who admitted to participating — on July 13, 2022 — in an armed home invasion with Myers.

    Two people — Malcolm Perdue, 69, and Kyndra Kay Swift, 51 — were shot inside the home in the 2900 block of South Liberty Street.

    Craig and Delaware County District Attorney Eric Hoffman argued those murders were committed by Myers, who is also accused of fatally shooting 19-year-old Kyler Ryan Musick — Perdue’s nephew and Swift’s great-nephew – the day before the other crimes.

    More: Ex-girlfriend: Myers confessed that teenager killed the body dumped near the tank

    Friday, Jones, who faces the same charges as Myers in the Liberty Street case — said he reluctantly agreed to join Myers in the armed robbery after being told there was $70,000 in the South Side home.

    He said that after arriving at the scene, he tried to leave, but feared that Myers — who, he testified, offered him a gun — would kill him.

    After forcing their way into the home around 4:30 a.m. and holding Swift’s mother and Musick at gunpoint, Jones said, he and Myers searched for Musick’s belongings in a back room in the they eventually found two rifles, a “bag of pills” and a safe. .

    Jones said he accompanied Musick’s mother and a young child to another part of the house when he heard two gunshots from the back room.

    In the scenario Hoffman described in his opening statement Tuesday, those were the shots that killed Swift.

    Jones said that after the shots were fired, he returned to the back room and saw Perdue — who had earlier fallen asleep on a couch — kneeling with his back to Myers pointing a gun at the elderly man.

    “(Myers) shot the man in the head,” said Jones, who added that he then ran from the home after taking the safe and other items.

    He was arrested a short time later at a girlfriend’s home.

    Jones said he did not make a deal with prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation. He has, however, signed an agreement stating that his testimony on Friday cannot be used against him.

    Testimony showed that Myers personally knew at least three people in the home at the time of the robbery — Swift, a 14-year-old girl, and Musick’s mother, who fled the home after hearing gunshots and ran to a neighbor’s residence, where she called 911.

    Earlier Friday, Coroner Jolene Clouse testified that Perdue and Swift had been shot twice in the head.

    Musick — reportedly killed in Myers’ backyard on July 12, 2022, before his body was dumped near Prairie Creek Reservoir — also died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Clouse said.

    Defense attorney Joel Hand’s cross-examination of the pathologist seemed to suggest a theory that Musick may have killed himself. Myers’ ex-girlfriend testified Thursday that the defendant confessed to shooting the teenager.

    Thursday afternoon’s proceedings were interrupted when a friend of Musick’s began yelling and cursing at Myers in the courtroom, calling him a murderer.

    Judge Thomas Cannon Jr. removed the jury from the courtroom and ordered the woman taken into custody. On Friday, as he urged those in the courtroom gallery to control their emotions, Cannon called Thursday’s incident “an outright criminal contempt of court.”

    The woman’s outburst prompted Hand’s defense attorney to ask for a mistrial. That request was denied.

    Douglas Walker is a news reporter for The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at [email protected].

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