The man convicted in the April 2017 murder of a Chesterton bartender died Friday at the Miami Correctional Level 3 Facility near Peru, the Miami County coroner has confirmed.
Christopher M. Dillard, 58, of Hobart, was sentenced to 65 years in the Indiana Department of Correction in the death of Nicole Gland, 23, of Portage. Dillard was a bouncer at the Upper Deck Lounge in downtown Chesterton; Gland was a bartender there.
An autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death was scheduled for Wednesday, according to Miami County Coroner John Boyer, who confirmed that Dillard died in the prison. The time of Dillard’s death was not immediately available; Boyer said he would release the cause and manner of death in about four weeks when toxicology results were complete.
A spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Correction could not be reached for comment.
Dillard was scheduled for a Jan. 16 hearing on post-conviction relief before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, according to an online court docket. The Indiana Court of Appeals rejected Dillard’s bid to have both his conviction and his sentence overturned in 2021.
Clymer sentenced Dillard to the maximum sentence in the April 19, 2017, stabbing death of Gland, 23, of Portage.
A jury convicted Dillard on one count of murder in Gland’s death. The 12-member jury deliberated about 10 hours before finding Dillard guilty late the night of Nov. 7, 2019. Clymer sentenced him two months later to 65 years in prison, at the top of the sentencing range for the Level 1 felony.
Then-Chesterton Police Chief Dave Cincoski speaks at a news conference on April 21, 2017, about charges in the fatal stabbing of Portage resident Nicole Gland in Chesterton. (Post-Tribune file photo)
Dillard, according to the appellate court ruling, sought to appeal his conviction and sentence on an assortment of fronts, including that the court erroneously denied his motion for change of venue because of pretrial publicity; his motion to dismiss because police didn’t preserve a knife found at the murder scene months later; and the admission in court of Dillard’s statement, “I have no problem killing,” through testimony by a correctional officer.
The guilty verdict came despite prosecutors’ inability to use the confession Dillard made about the crime during a police interrogation after the appellate court ruled the confession was not permissible as evidence because police ignored Dillard’s repeated requests for an attorney.
Media stories about that aspect of the case were part of the reason Dillard unsuccessfully sought a change of venue.
Defense attorney Russell Brown Jr. said during the 2 1/2-week trial that the Chesterton Police Department conducted a shoddy investigation of the crime, disregarding a serrated knife found near the scene months later.
A Chesterton Tribune employee going to work discovered Gland’s body in her SUV on the morning of April 19, 2017, behind the bar. An autopsy showed she died of multiple stab wounds.
Chesterton police said Nicole Gland, of Portage, was found slumped at the wheel of a Ford SUV on April 19, 2017, behind the businesses in the 100 block of South Calumet Avenue downtown. (Post-Tribune file photo)
Dillard police he’d been “partying rough” in the days leading up to Gland’s death, though Clymer discounted Dillard’s drug use at his sentencing.
“Mr. Dillard, you are an adult. You are a man. You are responsible for your actions. Mr. Dillard, you are dangerous,” Clymer said then, adding Dillard told his girlfriend in a jailhouse telephone call that it was the drugs. “That’s a copout. The drugs didn’t kill Nicole Gland. You did. The drugs didn’t hold the knife. You did. No one forced you to party roughly. No one forced you to be in a haze. You had no excuse to brutally kill someone.”
Clymer added then that Dillard told someone on the phone while he was in custody that he had a bad day.
“Your bad day, Mr. Dillard, was Nicole Gland’s last day,” he said.
Gland’s parents, Matthew and Jessica Gland, confronted their daughter’s killer during an often emotional hearing before Clymer on Jan. 2, 2020.
“What do you say to the monster who murdered your daughter? How does one capture that on this?” Matthew Gland said in court then, shaking the paper that held his prepared statement for the court. “This is supposed to be a healing process but instead it’s just one more chapter in a horror story created by you.”
Jessica Gland described her daughter during the hearing as outgoing, a Girl Scout and soccer player who took dance lessons and someone her friends could rely on when they needed someone to talk to.
“She had a way about her that made them smile and laugh,” she said.
More than once during the sentencing hearing, Matthew Gland called Dillard a coward and said Dillard showed no remorse during his trial.
“We want you to suffer in prison. We want you to die alone and afraid, just like our daughter,” he said then.
Dillard’s earliest projected release date was July 19, 2066.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
