Porter investigator explains crime scene evidence

Testimony details site of Lake County double murder

Prosecutors zeroed in on the scene of the deaths of two Lake County teens allegedly at the hands of Connor Kerner on Friday, as a crime scene investigator went over bullet holes and fragments, blood splatters and areas in a garage that appeared to have been cleaned and painted over.

Kerner, 19, of the 100 block of Kinsale, has pleaded not guilty and remains in Porter County Jail without bond, held on two counts of murder and additional felony counts of intimidation, arson, murder in the perpetration of a robbery and attempted robbery.

Kerner was 17 when he allegedly killed Molley Lanham, 19, of St. John, and Thomas Grill, 18, of Cedar Lake, on Feb. 25, 2019, at his grandparents’ Hebron-area home after a drug deal went bad, then loaded their bodies into the Honda Civic they arrived in and set fire to it in a wooded area a couple miles away.

While Thursday’s testimony in Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford’s court focused on the burned-out Honda Civic and what was found there, Porter County Sheriff ’s Department Detective Dan Alonzo, a crime scene investigator, provided details about what police found in the garage of Kerner’s grandparents.

That included the crescent wrench that, according to charging documents, Kerner used to beat Grill to death with after the gun Kerner was using was out of bullets.

Alonzo, examining a picture of the head of the wrench on a video screen in the courtroom, also donned black gloves and used a scissors to remove the wrench from a sealed evidence box.

Alonzo also went over the processing of several bullet holes found in the garage, including in the walls and garage door, as well as a Honda CRV and HarleyDavidson motorcycle parked there at the time of the crime.

He identified several evidence bags he sealed that contained bullet fragments collected throughout the garage, including one from a bullet that ripped through two cans of pop in a 12-pack carton on the garage floor.

“On the box, I observed that at one time it had been saturated” with pop, he said, adding when he moved the carton, there was no stain underneath it and it wasn’t stuck to the concrete floor. “It was consistent with it being cleaned up at some point.”

While the garage floor was painted gray, Alonzo said the area under the pop cans was one the spots on the floor that was white. The areas that were white included splash marks and were rough while the parts that were gray were “smoother and more consistent with a garage floor.”

Police also found the white marks by a drain in the center of the garage floor and discovered a reddishbrown stain consistent with blood in a seam in the floor near the drain, Alonzo said.

Co-defendant John Silva II, of Hamlet, who has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of murder in the perpetration of a robbery, remains in Porter County Jail without bond. Silva was charged May 22 with the alleged crimes and is awaiting the scheduling of a trial date.

Silva, according to charging documents, was in the basement of Kerner’s grandparents’ home at the time of the alleged murders and helped clean up the scene.

During opening arguments, Kerner’s defense team told the jury it would be up to them to decide whether Silva or Kerner killed Lanham and Grill.

Testimony in the trial continues Tuesday as it starts its second week.