The Zionsville Police Dept. and the Boone County Homicide Task Force are investigating after a body was discovered at 7:15 a.m. April 28 in a small retention area near the Zionsville Rail Trail.
The Boone County Communications Center received several 911 calls of “shots fired” at 6:07 a.m. near the Rail Trail behind Zionsville Town Hall, 1100 W. Oak St. Police searched the area but found nothing due to the darkness.
Later, at 7:15 a.m., a resident called 911 after discovering the body. The body was later identified as Samuel Thomas Bennett, a 23-year-old Zionsville resident. The Boone County Homicide Task Force stated in a press release it appeared he died from apparent gunshot wounds. Bennett’s autopsy was scheduled for April 29.
ZPD Chief Robert Knox said the department has not yet made any arrests.
“We don’t know who fired the shots and so there’s that,” he said. “The assailant is still out there, anytime a situation like this occurs, we don’t know what the motive was or why this happens, but our investigators are working on it.”
Knox said since investigators don’t know who fired the shots or why, he “can’t say there’s no danger.” He also said ZPD has received calls from outside agencies offering their assistance, and extra police are stationed on the Rail Trail where the body was found. Police also are canvassing neighborhoods and talking to people in search of information.
“We will use any means at our disposal work this and find out who did this and make an arrest,” Knox said.
Overall, Knox said he thinks Zionsville is still a safe community and bad things happen everywhere.
“It seems like here recently they’ve certainly come to our community, and we’ve had to suffer through it together, but when you boil it all down, we are a community of people and people do incredibly stupid, mean things,” Knox said. “I think 99.9 percent of our residents are honest, good, hardworking people, but it’s just evil is out there. We are a suburb of a major metropolitan area, even if we weren’t, people still do terrible things.”
Knox said he didn’t know if the assailant was a member of the Zionsville community or if the assailant came from outside the community.
ZPD is asking the public to come forward if they know of any information regarding the homicide and to call the Boone County Communications Center at (765) 482-1412 or email [email protected].
