In court: Irregular lifestyles revealed in trial for 2024 Christmas homicide
- Jamie Duffy
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---At a criminal trial, sometimes the people whose names are mentioned but never seen seem to loom larger than the defendant.
Shawn Williams, 48, is on trial this week, charged as an accomplice, acting in concert with Chad Kinney, 49, in the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Philip Rhinehart, a known drug user whose friends were birds of a feather.
Chad Kinney isn’t on trial yet, but his name this week has become infamous as the shooter.
They are all part of a loose, drug-involved camaraderie that lures them away from their
loving and frustrated families and they are missed, especially during the holidays.
The night before Rhinehart’s murder on Christmas 2024, he was at the Best Western motel hanging out with these folks.
One of the revelers was a young pretty girl with long brown hair who testified Wednesday she’d been staying at Rhinehart’s apartment at 1621 Wells St. for a couple of months and had known him for a year.
“I didn’t have nowhere to stay,” she explained.
She was a natural in court, so natural, in fact, that she forgot where she was and dropped the "F" word and then another word considered impolite during her testimony. You can't do that.
“Ma’am,” Judge David Zent said. “Can you do me a favor and stop cussing.”
Prosecutors said it had been important for her to appear in court in regular street clothes instead of the prison garb she now wears. And who could blame her?
According to online court records, she’s serving a sentence for Felony 6 theft and misdemeanor possession of (drug) paraphernalia.
Drugs are a dangerous pastime. The woman who found Rhinehart and dialed 9-1-1 is now dead from an overdose, possibly purposely orchestrated, according to an anonymous source.
Her testimony was invaluable in placing all the characters in this homicide together. She went through the names of the people partying on Christmas Eve and those included Rhinehart, Williams, Kinney and Mike Beers, among others. A couple of different stories on pistol-whipping were mentioned in court and it was unclear who was doing the pistol-whipping. It may have been Rhinehart and it may have been Beers.
Beers, another critical character not in court, was seen on camera rolling a suitcase out of the Wells Street apartment shortly after Rhinehart was shot to death with a fatal wound to his chest. It appeared he was staying there and yet there was this story of a beef between the two of them.
It’s up to conjecture what was in that suitcase. Perhaps his belongings, perhaps a gun or two, perhaps drugs.
No one knows, but the prosecution team including Deputy Prosecutor Jamie Groves said Beers didn’t give a consistent story and he’s now incarcerated elsewhere on a drug charge.
No drugs or guns were found when Fort Wayne police arrived at Rhinehart’s apartment around 6:30 p.m. after two friends came by and found him.
The young woman in braids said she thought Williams and Kinney were going to Rhinehart’s apartment for a drug deal. When she heard the shots, she thought “maybe Chad was being stupid and let off some gun shots.”
On camera surveillance, Kinney and Williams are seen surrounding the house at 6 p.m., one on each side of the two-story frame structure, when at that point Kinney fires four shots. By that time, Williams has run to the back of the house.
The videos of the two of them and the four shots Kinney (allegedly) fired were shown several times in court Wednesday as lead detective Liza Anglin took the stand and explained the route the duo took.
Philip Rhinehart was killed at the door of his home on Wells Street; the Marathon gas station; the alley.
The two jumped out of a 2015 Kia Sportage, driven by a woman who pulled into the Marathon station around the corner on Spring Street, according to the young woman who testified and was a passenger in the vehicle.
Williams and Kinney approached the Wells Street home from the alley that runs parallel to the main street from Spring to Huffman streets.
When the shooting was finished, the girl testified that the driver of the Kia first picked up Kinney and then Williams who was by then a couple of blocks up Huffman Street.
Read first day's court trial coverage here:
They were both seen in several street surveillance sources. Detectives identified both men by the clothing they wore at the time of the shooting, the same clothes they wore when they were picked up in traffic stops the next day.
The young girl who described Kinney as “always kind of like a wild character” and “kind of a crazy person in general,” didn’t find Williams to be like that at all. She agreed with Williams’ attorney, Jerad Marks, that he had “a gentle demeanor.”
Indeed, Williams has remained almost motionless in court, his expression that of a man who is expecting the worst and wishing he was anywhere but sitting at his own murder trial in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
He is not accused of shooting and killing Rhinehart, but acting in concert, something Marks is hoping he can otherwise explain to give him a shot at freedom.
Closing arguments could take place Thursday afternoon. Chief Deputy prosecutor and Deputy prosecutor Jamie Groves will likely take turns at closings.
To see video coverage of the trial, go to our YouTube page at theprobablecause.com or on our Facebook page, The Probable Cause.