Prosecutors said Monday that Aaron Belcher “snapped” and nearly killed his friend Aaron Swelfer after the latter man took up with his on-and-off again girlfriend.
Belcher, 37, of Griffith, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and battery by means of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argue it was self-defense.
It was a “love triangle (almost) turned deadly,” Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Koonce, trying the case with co-counsel Keith Anderson, told jurors in opening statements.
Belcher recently took Swelfer in when he had nowhere else to go. His girlfriend Gabrielle Shea, his child’s mother, grew closer to Swelfer around the time she and Belcher split for the last time.
The case was “complicated by drugs, sex, infidelity,” Koonce said.
Swelfer was wounded so badly, it was a “surprise” he survived, she said. He was left with bullet fragments in his head, a traumatic brain injury, profound short-term and long-term memory loss. He didn’t know what year it was, or his own address.
Belcher had started seeing Amanda Stout, but was “not ok” with Shea dating Swelfer. His stuff was still in the house. Three days before the shooting, Swelfer admitted their relationship to Belcher.
Koonce told jurors to coolly look at evidence, rather than judge what happened based on their emotions.
“Everyone in this case is unlikeable at one point or another,” she said.
Defense lawyer Maryrachel Durso, with co-counsel Mike Woods, told jurors prosecutors presented a selective picture.
“It just wasn’t that simple,” she said.
Belcher would be “dead if he did not act,” she argued. The investigation was sloppy and prosecutors presented “distractions,” like how badly Swelfer was hurt. They had to ask themselves if what was presented was what happened.
“You are going to have a lot of questions unanswered,” she said.
Multiple police agencies responded just before 2 p.m. Aug. 2, 2023 to the 1100 block of E. Highway 330 in unincorporated Griffith for a reported assault with a firearm.
They saw Shea screaming for help from a window. She said her ex-boyfriend, Belcher, took off in a red truck. Officers found Swelfer shot lying in front of a back housing unit, charges state. He was bleeding heavily, shot in the head and arm. He had his shirt wrapped around his head.
The woman told police Belcher lived with her and was angry after they broke up two weeks earlier. That day, he reportedly argued with Swelfer in the kitchen before the shooting. She was in a bedroom dressing her and Belcher’s daughter, then 4.
“You’re not going to break up my family,” Belcher reportedly told the man.
The victim said Belcher maced him before opening fire.
“You can’t call 911, I’m not going back to prison,” Belcher told Shea.
She testified Monday.
Before the jury came in, Shea acknowledged she was currently jailed for two unrelated felony cases and her lawyers were trying to work out a plea deal. Nothing was promised for her testimony.
She and Belcher split a few weeks before the shooting, she said. He still had a key and was gradually getting his stuff out of the house.
The men were in the roofer’s union together, she said.
Two days before the shooting, Belcher tried to get her back, then beat her as they argued, she told jurors. The next day, she, Swelfer and the child stayed at a hotel.
When they returned on Aug. 2, Belcher showed up at the house, before shooting Swelfer.
Belcher took off with Stout, who was waiting in his truck, then led police on a chase. They ditched the vehicle, then were arrested two hours after the shooting in a wooded area in Merrillville, Koonce told jurors.
After the shooting, Belcher wrote Shea in a letter he hoped Swelfer would be “brain dead” for “the rest of his miserable life.”
The defense is expected to cross-examine Shea starting Tuesday.
Judge Salvador Vasquez rejected an earlier 11-year plea deal in August after Swelfer appeared in court far more injured than he realized.
Woods also accused the prosecutor’s office of bad faith negotiating in October after a second and potential third plea deal were squashed at the last minute.
