SPENCER − Brandon Warner was driving home from Walmart around dusk on Sept. 14, 2021, when he noticed something lying on the edge of the road. He slowed down, then realized it was a human body.
"I thought it was trash on the road and as I got closer, I saw it was a person." He hurried home to tell his parents.
Deputies who arrived at the scene on Texas Pike soon identified the victim as 26-year-old Elizabeth Stevens, known by her nickname, Bizzy. She had been shot once in the head and left along the rural Owen County road.
Stevens was last seen alive at a birthday party that afternoon.
Six days later, detectives detained and arrested 36-year-old Jay D. White at Indianapolis International Airport on a warrant alleging the Spencer man had killed Stevens.
This week, more than two-and-a-half-years later, White is on trial in Owen Circuit Court on charges of murder and obstruction of justice. He's been in jail since his arrest.
Seeking justice:Spencer man arrested at Indianapolis airport after woman's body found on rural road
Tuesday afternoon, Owen County Prosecutor Ben Kim told the 11 men and one woman selected as jurors in the case that White aimed his AR-15 rifle at Stevens while she was riding in the back seat of a Dodge Ram pickup. Kim said White fired one bullet that killed Stevens.
Kim said White and a friend, who was driving the truck, left Stevens' body on the side of the road and proceeded to White's father's house, where the friend said White wiped down the rifle used to shoot Stevens and used a hose to clean blood out of his friend's truck.
He said it was White who pulled the trigger. Kim said the evidence will prove that's what happened.
The defense offered a different scenario, alleging Stevens made a statement about ending her life, held the assault rifle to the side of her head and fired.
Stevens had asked the men to give her a ride so she could pick up some clothes and they agreed, defense lawyer Megan Schueler said. The driver had been drinking, she said, and Stevens was upset and crying about the man's reckless driving.
According to White, Stevens got ahold of his gun, said she had nothing to live for and fired the gun as he sat in the front passenger seat. The driver, Schueler said, "freaked out" and started cursing.
"He locks up his brakes, gets out, opens the truck door and Bizzy falls out. He gets back in. He just drives."
Schueler acknowledged Stevens died a tragic death, "but it's not because of anything my client did," she told the jury. "He didn't even know her name."
The charges against White were filed by former Owen County Prosecutor Don VanDerMoere, who last year was appointed as a felony court judge. So Monroe Circuit Judge Darcie Fawcett was appointed special judge for the case and is overseeing the trial.
Bloomington defense attorney Carl Salzmann and Schueler are court-appointed public defenders representing White.
The trial is expected to continue into next week.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
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