Man’s murder conviction upheld
Christopher Dillard was sentenced to 65 years in death of Chesterton bartender
Christopher Dillard’s murder conviction in the death of Upper Deck Lounge bartender Nicole Gland and his 65-year prison sentence stand after the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected his attempts to overturn both.
“Finding no error, we affirm Dillard’s murder conviction and sentence,” the court said in a ruling dated Feb. 19.
Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer sentenced Dillard, 54, to the maximum sentence in the April 19, 2017, stabbing death of Gland, 23, of Portage.
A jury convicted Dillard, of
Hobart, on one count of murder in Gland’s death. Dillard was a bouncer at the Upper Deck Lounge. The 12-member jury deliberated about 10 hours before finding Dillard guilty late the night of Nov. 7, 2019. Clymer sentenced him two months later.
Dillard, according to the ruling, sought to appeal his conviction and sentence on an assortment of fronts, including that the court erroneously denied his motion for change of venue because of pretrial publicity; his motion to dismiss because police didn’t preserve a knife found at the murder scene months later; and the admission in court of Dillard’s statement, “I have no problem killing,” through testimony by a correctional officer.
The guilty verdict came despite prosecutors’ inability to use the confession Dillard made about the crime during a police interrogation after the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled the confession was not permissible as evidence because police ignored Dillard’s repeated requests for an attorney.
Media stories about that aspect of the case were part of the reason Dillard unsuccessfully sought a change of venue.
Defense attorney Russell Brown Jr. said during the 2½-week trial that the Chesterton Police Department conducted a shoddy investigation of the crime, disregarding a serrated knife found near the scene months later.
A Chesterton Tribune employee going to work discovered Gland’s body in her SUV the morning of April 19, 2017, behind the bar. An autopsy showed she died of multiple stab wounds.
Dillard told police he’d been “partying rough” in the days leading up to Gland’s death, though Clymer discounted Dillard’s drug use at his sentencing.
“Mr. Dillard, you are an adult. You are a man. You are responsible for your actions. Mr. Dillard, you are dangerous,” Clymer said then, adding Dillard told his girlfriend in a jailhouse telephone call that it was the drugs. “That’s a copout. The drugs didn’t kill Nicole Gland. You did. The drugs didn’t hold the knife. You did. No one forced you to party roughly. No one forced you to be in a haze. You had no excuse to brutally kill someone.”
Clymer added then that Dillard told someone on the phone while he was in custody that he had a bad day.
“Your bad day, Mr. Dillard, was Nicole Gland’s last day,” he said.
According to online prison records, Dillard is incarcerated at the Miami Correctional Level 3 Facility in Miami County. His earliest projected release date is July 19, 2066.