The four Adams County men implicated in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old Uniondale man in rural Wells County on Wednesday have each been preliminarily charged with murder, according to the Wells County Sheriff's Department.
Those counts could change, however, when formal charges are issued at the men's initial hearing in Wells County Superior Court early today. Hearings were scheduled for 9:30 a.m.
Cody Barkley, 18, Jonathan Thatcher, 18, Dustin Jackson, 22, and an unidentified 17-year-old juvenile are accused of fatally shooting Justin Sprow as he sat in his car with a passenger at the intersection of county roads 800 North and 100 West around 8 p.m.
Police say the men in a pickup approached Sprow's car, opened fire, then fled.
The passenger was able to get out of the car after the shooting and hide in a cornfield to call 911; he was not injured.
Barkley, Thatcher, Jackson and the juvenile were arrested early Thursday in Decatur and are being held at the Wells County Sheriff's Department.
Wells County Sheriff Bob Frantz said Thursday the shooting was the result of problems over a drug deal.
It was also the second shooting to take place in the normally quiet county in as many days.
On Tuesday, former IPFW and University of Saint Francis basketball player Amy White, 28, was found in a garage at a Bluffton home. She had been shot to death. Her husband, 27-year-old Tyler White of Bluffton, was formally charged with murder on Wednesday.
Police said the death was the result of a domestic dispute.
