'Not every murder is the same:' best friends see murder charge dropped in card game shooting

"And this is also another example of how plea agreements and the way cases work in the criminal justice system aren’t as simple as what they’re written on, a couple pieces of paper, after investigation and proper lawyering and depositions.--- Judge David Zent

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---It was another evening at Uncle Laron’s. The boys - Jayden Cosme and Jaylen Murray - were in the middle of a game of spades when Uncle accused the two 18-year-olds of cheating.

One thing is for sure. That evening of May 30, 2025, there was a physical altercation and amidst the drunkenness and (alleged) drug use of the 59-year-old victim, Laron Rosse, there were guns.

Jayden Cosme and public defender Jerad Marks before Cosme's sentencing.

After Rosse was shot dead by Murray, his 18-year-old nephew, police found two guns at Rosse’s home, one of them under his body, according to Allen County Chief Counsel Tesa Helge who spoke at Cosme’s sentencing Tuesday morning.

Cosme, like Murray, took a plea deal. Cosme pleaded guilty to a Felony 5 assisting a criminal and was sentenced to six years in prison with 256 days already spent at the Allen County Jail. 

According to paperwork filed by the Allen County Prosecutor, Murray will plead guilty to reckless homicide, a Felony 5 and felony firearm enhancement which can add up to 20 years on a sentence. Murray is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 19.

The gun used to shoot Rosse wasn't recovered. Both guns found at Rosse’s home tested for his DNA and that of his unnamed girlfriend. She was the witness who told detectives the two boys assaulted him.

That version is heavily disputed.  

Jaylen Murray (left) and Jayden Cosme were best friends just graduating from high school when the shooting occurred. Both were allowed to plea to a lesser charge than the original charge of murder.

“This was an unbelievable tragedy,” Helge told Superior Court Judge David Zent who wanted to know why the charge dropped from murder to a Felony 5.

“Not every murder is the same,” Helge replied. “There are two explanations for what happened.

The murder charge could have stayed that way.  There are plenty of instances where truth-be-damned prosecutors and even judges have refused to accept otherwise irrefutable facts. 

Read “Framed” by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey and fume at the intractability of the legal system in 10 cases guaranteed to break your heart.

But not in Allen County where the impossible task is to weigh the grief of the family against rightful justice for the accused.

From the get-go, Cosme and Murray said Murray shot in self defense after Rosse drew a gun on them and threatened to shoot them.

The optics were against them. Rosse died of multiple gunshots to the torso and one to the head, according to the probable cause submitted by homicide detective Scott Wilson.

And the boys fled the scene. The probable cause points out they didn’t stick around to render aid.

However, once the DNA tests came back with confusion surrounding the weapon used in self defense, the prosecutors revisited the facts.

The boys’ friends and families insisted that there was another version, that Chico aka Cosme and Murray weren’t bad kids.

At the sentencing, a relative of both Rosse and Murray got up toward the end to make a sort of bombshell declaration.

“I loved my brother,” Tonja Rosse told Judge Zent. “He was a good man. He wasn’t perfect. I am also the shooter’s grandmother.”

Tonja Rosse said the boys visited Laron three or four days a week and she didn’t really know what happened that day.

“I know these boys are not violent. They’re not vicious,” she said. She’d been struggling these past nine months with the homicide as well as Rosse’s wife who was there in the courtroom but did not speak.

Then came the jaw dropper. “The witness who was there was not truthful.”

She asked that there be another opportunity to allow the boys who had just graduated from high school to become “committed citizens to their country. We don’t want our hearts to be bitter.”

Helge told Judge Zent she’d spoken to Rosse's family who had agreed to the plea deal, even though they weren’t happy about it. 

A young woman spoke on behalf of Rosse’s daughter. 

"No one should ever lose their father this way." His daughter was “left with pain and anxiety,” unable to “carry on like nothing has happened.”

Cosme was remorseful in speaking to the judge although barely audible.

His mother, Holly Harden, got up at the mic to say her son would “live with it for the rest of his life," but added that "he walked into an impossible situation." 

Zent paused before reading the plea agreement and he had a few words to say.

“Unfortunately this is yet again another tragedy in our community,” Zent said.  "A lot of families, a lot of lives have been destroyed. This sadly keeps happening."

But there was more: "And this is also another example of how plea agreements and the way cases work in the criminal justice system aren’t as simple as what they’re written on, a couple pieces of paper, after investigation and proper lawyering and depositions.”