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Indianapolis Toddler Sleeps Through Fatal Shooting On Northeast Side

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 12:43 PST, Jul 23, 2016

The hearts of Hoosiers on the northeast side of Indianapolis suffer mixed emotions following a shooting on Friday morning. According to the Indianapolis Star, a 19-month-old toddler from the northeast side of Indianapolis slept through a fatal shooting on Friday morning. The shooting killed the toddler’s mother, the toddler’s father, and the family’s upstairs neighbor.

According to police and relatives of the family who were at the scene, the 19-month-old toddler was discovered sleeping with her 25-year-old father Cameron Baker’s body nearby. Takara Coleman, the toddler’s mother, and the upstairs neighbor, Lisa Woods, were discovered on the couch in the front room of the apartment. Surprisingly, the 19-month-old Indianapolis toddler was unharmed and appeared to have slept through the shooting.

Fox 59 reports police received a phone call regarding a missing person around 6:30 a.m. on Friday morning from an apartment in the 3400 block of Admar Court, near 46th Street and Binford Blvd. Family members of the upstairs neighbor, Lisa Woods, claim her brother heard gunshot sounds shortly after Lisa left for work around 6:15 a.m.

When the brother heard the gunshot sounds, looked outside, and saw his sister’s vehicle was still in the parking lot, he decided to call the police out of concern for his sister’s well-being.

“This is horrible,” says Woods’ aunt Beverly Morris.

“It’s horrible for anyone to have to go through a death, but to go through a murder? That’s worse. It’s worse.”

When police officers first arrived to the building, they found the apartment door was left open. Police claim there were not obvious signs to indicate someone had forced their way into the apartment. Neighbors told the Indianapolis Star that each of the buildings in the apartment complex have a locked entrance that requires guests to be buzzed in.

Police are currently still trying to figure out exactly what Lisa Woods was doing in the apartment of the Indianapolis toddler’s family. The police do believe the 19-month-old Indianapolis toddler slept through most, if not all, of the fatal shooting.

It was roughly 9:30 a.m. when an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department victim assistant carried the toddler out of the home. The victim assistant could later be seen crying outside of the apartment after learning one of the victims of the shooting was a relative, her niece.

The manager has encouraged the victim assistant to take time off to grieve the loss of her family member, but the victim assistant declined taking time off because other families were still relying on her to continue to do her job.

The Indianapolis Department of Child Services took the toddler who slept through the shooting to Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health for a check-up and is currently working to return the toddler to relatives after she has been cleared by medical staff.

The Indianapolis northeast-side apartments where the shooting took place has a total of three different security cameras, according to the Indianapolis Star. Footage from the camera closest to where the fatal shooting took place has been given to the police to help with the investigation.

Police have yet to release any information on possible suspects that are being questioned or sought after. The police also have not released any information to reveal whether or not the security footage provided any assistance in investigating what happened.

At the moment, police and family members are left with so many questions. What stopped Lisa Woods from going to work? Why was she in the apartment? The biggest question looming on most people’s minds regarding this three fatality shooting on the Indianapolis northeast side is why the shooter killed the neighbor, the mother, and the father, but spared the toddler. More importantly, did the toddler really sleep through the shooting?

[Image via Shutterstock]

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