Indiana authorities identified a suspect in the 2006 slayings of 10-year-old Blake Dickus and his 26-year-old stepmother, Chynna Dickus, years before charges were filed. Prosecutors say an unusual gap in state law delayed the case.
Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner told News Outlet that investigators had identified Michael Jerome James as a suspect in the double homicide. But for years, prosecutors worked to determine how they could legally pursue a case against someone accused of committing the crimes at age 14.
“That’s what took us so long,” Hamner said. “We had a suspect identified. We weren’t able to bring charges for several years because we were trying to get the jurisdictional statute in place.”
Blake, 10, and Chynna Dickus, his 26-year-old stepmother, were stabbed to death inside their Franklin, Indiana, home on July 24, 2006. (City of Franklin, Indiana)
James, now 35, appeared Thursday, Oct. 8, in Johnson Circuit Court in Franklin after a grand jury indicted him in the July 24, 2006, deaths of Blake and Chynna.
He faces four murder counts. Prosecutors allege that James killed Blake and Chynna while burglarizing, or attempting to burglarize, their Franklin residence.
At the hearing, James told Johnson Circuit Court Judge Andrew Roesener that he did not yet have a lawyer but intended to hire one. Roesener gave him until Nov. 2 to retain counsel and scheduled his next status hearing for that date.
The legal gap that delayed prosecution for years
According to Hamner, the central legal complication stemmed from James’ age when the killings occurred.
For years, Indiana law generally placed jurisdiction over crimes committed by minors in juvenile court. That created a legal quandary when authorities identified an alleged juvenile offender only after the person had become an adult.
Because James was neither identified nor charged while he was a juvenile, prosecutors had to determine whether an adult court could legally take up the case decades later.
“That leaves a gap because this person is alleged to have committed a crime when he was 14, was not charged in juvenile court, and now that he’s over the age of 18 could not be charged in adult court because of the way that law was written,” Hamner said.
Indiana lawmakers changed the law in 2023, creating a route for adult courts to handle certain cases involving people accused of committing serious offenses as juveniles. However, the measure did not apply to every violent crime and partly depended on whether prosecutors could have pursued adult charges when the alleged offender was still a minor.
Michael Jerome James has been charged with killing 10-year-old Blake and his 26-year-old stepmother, Chynna Dickus, in Franklin, Indiana, on July 24, 2006. (Johnson County Sheriff’s Office)
Hamner said the 2023 law was tested in another case involving child molestation allegations. The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the statute could not be applied there, and the Indiana Supreme Court later agreed.
“That means that we couldn’t use it either,” Hamner said.
“We started back over. We went back to the legislature and, with the guidance of the decision in that 2023 statute, drafted a new law that would satisfy the concerns that the Indiana Supreme Court had.”
After lawmakers considered the Supreme Court’s concerns, Hamner said they approved a new statute in 2025. The change provided prosecutors with the legal mechanism they needed to charge James.
“Then we were back in business to be able to charge this individual,” he said.
Hamner said he is now more confident that the revised statute will survive a legal challenge.
“Nothing’s ever certain, but I’m a lot more confident about this statute than we were with the other one,” Hamner said.
Lance Hamner said the development in the Dickus investigation played a major role in his decision to run for prosecutor again. (Courtesy of Lance Hamner)
Criminal defense lawyer Mike Cunningham, however, told Fox 59 News that he believes Indiana law does not allow prosecutors to charge James as an adult for crimes he allegedly committed before the state changed its juvenile jurisdiction law in 2023.
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“For acts that are committed after 2023, if you’re a juvenile and we don’t learn about it until after you’re 21, then you may be held accountable in adult court,” he said. “But what the court has said is for anything that happened before 2023, the law does not permit that because they did not have adequate notice.”
If James’ eventual defense attorney challenges the court’s jurisdiction, the dispute could determine whether prosecutors can pursue the murder case at all.
The investigation
Blake and Chynna suffered multiple stab wounds inside the family’s home on Aberdeen Drive in the otherwise peaceful Branigin Woods subdivision.
Investigators determined that Blake also had blunt-force injuries and signs of smothering.
Blake’s father, Sean Dickus, returned home and discovered the bodies. Blake’s mother, Christina Smith, had planned to pick up her son that day but instead arrived to find the neighborhood surrounded by police.
She later learned that Blake appeared to have fought desperately against his attacker, and had severe injuries to his hands.
“His poor little hands were so bad, like, he tried to grab the knife and like, his thumb was almost sliced off,” Christina Smith told WTHR. “The knife went through his hands… I don’t know how that guy could live with himself.”
For years, investigators explored possible connections between the murders and a string of break-ins occurring within a half-mile of the Dickus residence. They also questioned multiple construction workers who were working in the neighborhood around the time of the murders.
“They did a very extensive and thorough investigation, but they weren’t able to identify any suspects,” Hamner said. “They were getting a lot of tips, but nothing was coming from it.”
Hamner declined to say whether authorities uncovered evidence suggesting a juvenile committed the burglaries or whether James had any connection to them.
A break in a case that followed Hamner for years
The Dickus murders have followed Hamner through years of his career.
Voters first elected Hamner as Johnson County prosecutor in 1991, and held the position when the 2006 murders happened.
Hamner left the prosecutor’s office and became a judge in 2009 with the murders still unsolved. In 2021, he learned that investigators believed they had caught a break in the case, although he declined to reveal what initially led authorities to James.
James is in the custody of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Franklin, Indiana. (Google Maps)
Hamner had already considered leaving the bench and running for prosecutor again. He said the development in the Dickus investigation played a major role in his decision.
“When I found out about this, this was a huge part of my making that decision to come back and work on this case that had sadly just been languishing all those years,” Hamner said.
A family waits nearly two decades for answers
The arrest came after nearly two decades of unanswered questions for the family.
As the years passed without an arrest, the family continued appealing for information while investigators revisited evidence and pursued leads.
Sean Dickus also faced years of public suspicion after discovering the bodies, despite investigators clearing him in the killings.
“My family went through torture, so I can’t go through anything worse than that,” he told WTHR.
What comes next
Despite the indictment, authorities have revealed little about the evidence that ultimately connected James to the killings.
Franklin Police Capt. Jeff Dawe told WTHR that James represents the first lead in the nearly 20-year investigation supported by forensic evidence. Authorities have not publicly disclosed the nature of that evidence.
James remains held without bond at the Johnson County Jail in Franklin. The court has scheduled a pretrial conference for Dec. 10.
