INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ A central Indiana judge has dismissed a murder charge against a man days before he was to stand trial in the killing of a 13-year-old boy who knocked over some trash cans.
Marion County prosecutors asked the judge to drop the charge against 18-year-old Dino Thompson III, citing in part authorities' inability to locate a key witness in Ashton Harting's January shooting death.
The Indianapolis Star reports that witness, Thompson's girlfriend, told investigators she heard trash cans being knocked over, saw Thompson retrieve a handgun, leave the house and then heard three or four gunshots.
Authorities tried more than a dozen times to track her down at five different addresses and even obtained a court order to take her into custody but she could not be located.
