Rocks, crowbars and guns: Red Roof Inn homicide trial on this week

FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---The murder trial of Tommy Gray echoes our American past. Men (and now women) have always traveled away from home for economic reasons, sometimes desperate economic reasons.

Gangs of itinerant workers were a regular sight in the late 19th and early 20th century, their stories told in the novels of the period.

In December, 2023, two groups of Servpro workers, one hired out of Louisville; the other, Chicago, squared off late one Saturday afternoon and had a heck of a brawl in the southeast parking lot of the Red Roof Inn on West Coliseum Boulevard, according to a probable cause affidavit written by homicide detective Geraud Bartels.

It started over a remark a Chicago supervisor hurled at the guys from Louisville. They weren't getting their work done, he said. That was enough to provoke some 20 people into a melee that left one man dead.

Tommy Gray

The brawl was caught on surveillance camera, but not the shooting.

What the surveillance video doesn't show is Gray, now 23, from Frankfort, Kentucky, pulling a gun from his waistband and chasing down Keelin Woods, 26, of Chicago, and allegedly shooting him, court documents say.

Woods went down next to a storage POD, bleeding from several gunshot wounds. He died at a local hospital.

Welcome to Fort Wayne. The Red Roof Inn is located on West Coliseum Boulevard, a stretch often monitored by FWPD Street Crimes.

Gray was charged a couple of days later with murder, attempted murder and using a gun in the commission of a crime.

There were two victims, Woods and his "twin," according to a witness who is cousin to the victims. Gray reportedly shot at the brother first, but missed, court records said.

That cousin said he threw a rock and hit Gray in the head. Gray was knocked to the ground where the Chicago crew stoned him and attacked him with crowbars.

The cousin said he got the gun off Gray and tried to shoot him, but the gun jammed. He racked the slide and tried to shoot Gray again, but it still wouldn't work.

Somehow with all the rocks and crowbars, Gray escaped and jumped into his white sedan. He backed up his car, hit a black truck behind him and peeled out of the Red Roof Inn on to West Coliseum Boulevard, according to court documents.

Wednesday in Allen Superior Court, Lucrishia Hale, an assistant supervisor at the time, described the scene as "chaotic" and that she'd "never seen anything like that." She ran away from the chaos in a state of shock so she didn't witness the shooting, she told defense attorney David Felts.

Felts scored points when Hale testified that she saw the attack with crowbars before she heard gunshots. Felts and William Lebrato, the Allen County chief public defender, are representing Gray.

Surveillance video does show Gray running back to his vehicle, a white 2022 Chevrolet Malibu rented out of Frankfort and leave, but not before backing into a black truck behind him, damaging it. He then left the parking lot and turned on to Coliseum Boulevard.

Tommy Gray didn't get far, court docs say. Fort Wayne Police Department Detectives Marc Deshaies and Geoff Norton ran Gray's name through a third party law enforcement search. They traced him to the Malibu rented through Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Norton ran the plate and, with the new technology, tracked the Malibu going south on I-69 toward Indianapolis. Then the route changed to I-65 toward Louisville.

It must have been adrenaline that kept Gray going. The crews reported he was beaten severely and would need medical attention, court documents said.

A couple days later, and Gray was picked up in Louisville and extradited to Fort Wayne where he's been sitting in the Allen County Jail. Now he's on trial.

Representing the state are Deputy Prosecutors Tasha Lee and Rebecca Grove. Presiding judge is Magistrate John Bohdan.