LAFAYETTE, IN — In the days leading to a shooting last week that left a man in critical condition, police allege a woman who often cared for his 7-year-old son had offered the man money in exchange for his child.
Police were called to Overlook Pointe Apartments about 8:42 a.m. April 6 for a report of a man shot. When police arrived, they found 39-year-old Rayne Shideler lying beside his fiancé’s Buick suffering from gunshot wounds to his neck and chest, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Shideler told police that “Adam” shot him, whom police identified as Adam McDaniel, and that Adam was involved with Marrissa Parker. Before being taken to a hospital for treatment of his gunshot wounds, Shideler told police McDaniel had left with his 7-year-old.
Security camera footage from Overlook Pointe showed McDaniel’s truck driving around the complex before the shooting, according to court records.
Shideler’s fiancé said the morning of the shooting Shideler had left their apartment to take his son from a prior relationship to school, court records said. The fiancé said she heard shots fired outside the apartment and found Shideler with gunshot wounds.
The fiancé told police Parker, who is not related to the child, had Shideler’s son at her house regularly and acted like a mom to the child, court records said.
But police found by reviewing Shideler’s cell phone that he’d texted Parker on March 17, instructing her that he did not want her in his child’s life anymore and to stop communicating with them.
Police spoke to Parker on the day of the shooting, according to the affidavit. She told police she lived with McDaniel on Holly Drive in Lafayette, but that she hadn’t spoken to him since March 31.
Parker said that on the morning of April 6, Shideler’s child walked with his backpack to her residence, court records said. She told police she then drove the child to her grandmother’s house in Rossville.
But forensic evidence leads police to believe Parker’s story wasn’t true.
Parker said she knew the child after becoming acquainted with the child’s mother through a mutual friend but that she never had a romantic relationship with Shideler, according to the affidavit. Parker said her relationship with the child was “like a mother and son relationship.”
During the interview with police, Parker allowed investigators to search her phone, where police found several calls between Parker and McDaniel before and after the shooting. According to court records, Parker sent Shideler a message on March 26 offering money in exchange for custody of his child.
When police were able to forensically download the data from Parker’s phone, they found she’d arrived at a local cemetery about seven minutes after the shooting. Court records said officers later located “several letters” at the cemetery that appeared to have been written by McDaniel, though no context of the letters was described in the court record.
McDaniel was reportedly at the same cemetery an hour before the shooting, according to the affidavit. After leaving the cemetery after the shooting, Parker then drove to a nearby baseball field to meet with McDaniel, who then allegedly gave the child to Parker.
During the forensic search of Parker’s phone, police found she and McDaniel had communicated “extensively” about the child’s whereabouts in the days leading up to the shooting. According to the court records, McDaniel attempted to locate the child at school and at their home, reporting his findings to Parker.
In an April 6 interview with the child, he said “his mom’s husband, Adam, shot his dad with a small black pistol,” according to court records. The child said McDaniel then took him and drove to another location to meet with “mom,” which was how the child referred to Parker.
He told police that after he got in the car with Parker, she took them to “grandma’s,” which was Parker’s grandmother’s house in Rossville.
A witness of the shooting said Shideler was supposed to give him and the boy a ride to school that morning, the court documents said. The witness got into the front seat of the car, noting the child was in the back seat, when Shideler told him he needed to go back into his apartment to retrieve something.
Before Shideler could return, the witness said he heard the car door open and saw a man climb into the back seat where the child was, the affidavit said. The man pointed the gun at the witness and told him to get out of the car.
At that point, the witness said Shideler returned from inside the apartment and began attempting to get the child out of the back seat. The witness told police that the man then shot Shideler, and the witness then ran from the car into Shideler’s apartment.
Once inside, the witness told police he heard a second gunshot and saw the man running away with the child.
A second witness told police that she was also at her apartment that morning when she heard a gunshot. She said she then saw the other witness running up the stairs toward the apartment and saw a man standing over Shideler while waiving a handgun.
The witness said she saw Shideler on the ground with his hands in the air defensively, and she saw the man fire a second shot at Shideler’s neck.
Parker was arrested on Friday and remains in the Tippecanoe County Jail on no bond, facing six felony charges of kidnapping and one misdemeanor charge of false informing.
McDaniel, who is still at large, according to court documents, has been formally charged with a slew of felony charges including attempted murder, kidnapping, aggravated battery, pointing a firearm and criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon.
Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached via email at jellison@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Woman offered to buy child from victim in April 6 shooting, court docs say
Reporting by Jillian Ellison, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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