Sunday, November 29, 2009

Otterbein, IN: Victim ID’ed in fatal shooting; suspect still sought

By SOPHIA VORAVONG
svoravong@jconline.com

OTTERBEIN — Authorities were searching Friday night for a Lafayette man suspected of fatally shooting his girlfriend following a confrontation near the Tippecanoe-Benton county line.

Steven R. Farrell, 57, is considered armed and dangerous, according to Benton County Sheriff Butch Pritchett.

The victim, Christine R. Craig, 40, of West Lafayette, was pronounced dead at Fellure’s Foods in Otterbein, where her 16-year-old daughter drove her for help.

The daughter was not injured.

Pritchett said the shooting took place between 1:15 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. today near a cornfield on Benton County Road 1050 East, about a half-mile north of U.S. 52. No houses are in the vicinity of the shooting.

He said Craig and Farrell had been dating, and the incident began as a domestic disturbance.

Sgt. Kim Riley, public information officer for the Lafayette district of the Indiana State Police, described the events immediately leading up to the confrontation.

He said Christine Craig was driving her vehicle on the county road when she pulled up next to Steven Farrell who was driving his pickup. After the vehicles stopped, Craig's 16-year-old daughter got out of Farrell's pickup truck to speak to her mother.

Craig exited her vehicle and confronted Farrell. She then got back into her car on the passenger side. Her daughter got behind the wheel.

Farrell allegedly then walked over to the passenger's side of the car and shot Craig before returning to his pickup and driving off, Riley said.

Pritchett said Craig's daughter drove her mother to Fellure's Foods, a gas station and convenience store on U.S. 52, just east of the Tippecanoe-Benton county line.

The shooting scene and Fellure's are about two miles apart.

Investigators from numerous agencies and emergency responders spent several hours at Fellure's this afternoon. They roped off part of the parking lot and an entryway near a white, older-model Chevrolet Cavalier in which Craig was riding.

Benton County Coroner John Cox said Craig suffered a single gunshot wound to her shoulder.

The Indiana Department of Child Services was called to Craig's home to take custody of a young boy there, Pritchett said.

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