An Indiana man was arrested Friday for the brutal 2006 murders of a 10-year-old boy and his stepmother — a suspect who lived just miles from the crime scene and walked free for two full decades while a family buried its dead. Michael Jerome James, 35, was taken into custody at his Shelbyville home, more than 20 years after Chynna Dickus, 26, and her stepson Blake Dickus, 10, were found slaughtered inside their Franklin, Indiana residence.
For ordinary Americans, the case lays bare a justice system that can take a generation to do its most basic job: identify a killer and put him in a cage. Blake Dickus didn't get 20 years of life. He was knifed, beaten, and suffocated, according to the New York Post. Chynna Dickus was stabbed to death. Their bodies were discovered by the boy's father, Sean Dickus, when he came home from work in July 2006.
James would have been 14 at the time of the killings. Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner says he will be tried as an adult on two counts of murder. But prosecutors have refused to disclose what evidence links James to the double homicide. "All I can say is that [police] brought us an investigation that we took to the grand jury," Hamner said. "The grand jury listened to the evidence over a period of three weeks and then they returned that indictment."
A source close to the investigation told WTHR that James grew up just a few miles from the murder scene. He was born in Texas, removed from his mother's home by Child Protective Services along with his sister as she battled drug addiction, and was adopted by an aunt who relocated to Indiana. After leaving Franklin, he lived in the Shelbyville area for the past two years, neighbors said. The motive remains unclear. In 2015, investigators explored whether burglaries — including one on the day of the killings — were linked. They also investigated a possible domestic violence connection. Neither thread appears to have publicly resolved.
Franklin Police Chief Kirby Cochran praised his officers for refusing "to let the case grow cold." He credited advances in forensic science, new leads, and sustained effort. The arrest came just days after the reward for information quadrupled to $100,000. Hamner is now urging anyone with knowledge to come forward: "It is time for answers."
Answers that are 20 years late. A child who was beaten, knifed, and suffocated in his own home. A stepmother stabbed to death. A father who found the bodies. And a suspect who allegedly lived nearby, evaded accountability for two decades, and built a life while the Dickus family buried theirs. The system will now try Michael Jerome James as an adult. The question no one in authority wants to answer: why did it take this long?
