CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP): A northwestern Indiana judge has formally informed a Gary man charged in the slayings of two women and suspected in the deaths of five others that the state plans to seek the death penalty.
44-year-old Darren Vann told Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Boswell on Wednesday that he understood the murder cases in the deaths of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy of Gary and 35-year-old Anith Jones of Merrillville would be heard by a single jury and that he faces the death penalty in each.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter filed the death penalty request in April. Police have said Vann confessed to killing seven women whose remains were found over three days in October, but has been charged in only the deaths of Hardy and Jones.
