Guilty, Guilty, Guilty: Boone County jury finds Chad Grimball guilty of three murders
Aug. 30—A Boone County jury on Tuesday took just a little more than two hours to find Chad Grimball guilty of three counts of murder.
Grimball, 42, visited a Lebanon apartment Sept. 8, 2021, and shot three victims in the head — execution style. He left them lying in their own blood, and he left bloody footprints behind, testimony presented this week and last week showed.
Kandy Wampler saw Grimball leave the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Larry 'Beeker' Stogsdill Jr., 42, as she returned home Sept. 8, 2021.
Then she found the bodies of Stogsdill; his son, Brannon Martin, 20; and Martin's fiancé, Grace Bishop, 19, she testified last week. Wampler and Stogsdill lived in the apartment, and Martin and Bishop often visited, a witness reportedly told police.
Grimball also left empty shell casings near the bodies and his DNA on cigarette butts in the kitchen. Shell casings collected at a shooting range Grimball used north of Lebanon matched those left near the bodies, and they were all fired from the same .40-caliber handgun, the Indiana State Police crime lab determined. Grimball's girlfriend bought the gun for him because he was a previously convicted violent felon and not allowed to buy or possess a gun.
Investigators never found the handgun because Grimball disassembled it as he fled the apartment on Sept. 8, 2021. He threw the gun out the car window, piece by piece, as he drove to Thorntown, his girlfriend, Alicia Duff, testified. They dumped the final pieces at a rock quarry outside of Thorntown.
The enforcer
Duff waited in the car while Grimball entered the apartment that day. She later burned the clothing he wore in the apartment, including the shoes, and the outfit he put on after they reached Thorntown. Photo captures from video surveillance outside of the Boone County Probation Office showed Grimball on the same day of the murders wearing shoes that matched the prints left at the scene.
Grimball was known to be the enforcer for a childhood friend, Johnathon Thompson, who was an inmate in the Boone County Jail at the time of the murders, testimony showed. Thompson physically abused Stogsdill's daughter, and the three victims beat him up in retaliation, according to court records.
Thompson, the victims, and some of the witnesses were involved in drug use, and Thompson believed the victims started jailhouse rumors that he was a snitch, which endangered him in the jail, according to the affidavit.
Thompson, holding a grudge, asked Grimball in recorded phone calls from the jail to "add Beeker to that list," and to "make your presence known," at the apartment, according to tapes played during trial. He offered Grimball a $2,000 watch for "helping out."
Grimball told Thompson, "I'm fixing to rid you of your problem," fewer than 50 hours before the murders, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Grimball's closing
Grimball, who represented himself during the trial, told the jury during his closing argument that he was a victim of a corrupt justice system, and they were, too, for having to sit through a trial brought about by "false allegations" made against him. The six-man, six-woman jury didn't buy it and returned a verdict after about two hours and 20 minutes, during which time they also had lunch.
The prosecutorial team cautioned the victims' friends and family ahead of the verdict to not react with emotional outbursts. Boone Superior II Judge Bruce Petit admonished them before reading the verdict to keep proper decorum. And they did — in the courtroom.
Defeat
Grimball laid his head on a table in front of him in defeat as Petit read the guilty verdicts. He kept his head down and made crying sounds but was tearless when he again lifted his head. Grimball left the courtroom looking at his feet.
He again encountered his victims' family and friends gathered on the courthouse lawn as police led him in shackles to a waiting police cruiser. After months of grief, and seven days of listening to testimony and seeing autopsy photos of their loved ones, the group embraced and cried.
Some of them called after Grimball, saying, "I hope you rot in hell," and other words not fit for print. Police cautioned one young woman to step back as she videoed her remarks and pursued Grimball toward the police cruiser. After Grimball was gone, they turned again to one another to seek comfort from their collective grief.
Stogsdill's grandfather said he was relieved after the verdicts were delivered. "Now maybe they can get justice," he said of the victims.
Next step
Petit set sentencing for Sept. 26. Grimball could be sentenced to 45 to 196 years for the three murders and a carrying a handgun without a license charge, a class A misdemeanor, in which he was also found guilty.
"Obviously, based on his previous criminal history and the evil manner in which he acted alone that day, warrant us advocating for the maximum possible sentence," Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said.
Major Felony Deputy Prosecutor TK Morris led the defense team that also included Drug Task Force Prosecutor Conrad Schrock, Deputy Prosecutor Lindsay Adams, Paralegal Tracey Christner, Victim Advocate Carla Leathers, and Lebanon Police Detective Eric Adams.
"I cannot express how proud I am of the prosecutorial team," Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said following the trial. "They have prepped for this case three separate times, and they were meticulous in preparing this case and demonstrated it over the last seven days. We are so lucky to have them in our community. The case was previously postponed just before trial twice before.
"The investigators, from day one, followed the evidence and prepared more than 30 search warrants and really gave us a ton to work with," he said of police.
Eastwood also praised the jury, saying, "I can't imagine what it's like sitting on a seven-day trial. Their ability to sift through the evidence and come to this verdict is a testament to how much they care for their community."
