ANDERSON, Ind. — Discovered among a grisly crime scene was a petition requesting an Anderson mother’s 28-year-old son be committed to a group home. He suffered from paranoia and hallucinations, the mother wrote, and was a danger to himself and others.
The petition, dated Sept. 13, was found nearly two weeks later on a table next to the bloody spot where the mother was stabbed multiple times in the back. She didn’t survive her injuries.
According to court documents, officers with the Anderson Police Department were called out to a home in the 1600 block of Meridian Street on Monday just before 4 p.m. Officers were dispatched to the home after receiving a frantic, emotional call from a woman who discovered her mother, Janet Hart, lying on the floor with multiple stab wounds in her back inside the Meridian Street home.
Janet Hart was originally said to be in extremely critical condition but ended up succumbing to her injuries.
Janet’s daughter told police that her mother had been arguing with her brother, Jiam Hart, on Sunday night. After not hearing from her mother and being unable to contact her all day, the daughter went to the Meridian Street home and found the door standing wide open. Inside the home the gruesome scene revealed itself.
Police quickly began to search for Jiam Hart, according to the court documents. The daughter told police that Jiam was not allowed to stay inside her mother’s house due to his numerous problems and erratic behavior, but does stay in the garage. Despite this, the daughter told police she’d seen Jiam leave the home on Sunday after she dropped her children off at her mother’s while she went shopping.
She told investigators her mother messaged her later that night, after she’d taken her children home, telling her how Jiam had been “acting a fool” and spitting and yelling at her. The argument supposedly was about Jiam eating candy that he was told he didn’t have permission to eat.
Officer located Jiam on Lincoln Street and took him into custody around 8 p.m. on Monday. In his possession was his mother’s Mastercard, documents reveal. Janet Hart’s daughter told police that her mother never would have given Jiam her credit card as she hadn’t trusted him with it.
A bracelet worn on Jiam’s wrist was also supposedly his mother’s, according to Jiam.
Investigators spoke with Jiam after taking him into custody. In their interview, Jiam’s answers drifted from unfocused to stubborn to peculiar.
At one point, Jiam told officers his mother kicked him out of the house and that he was homeless. Yet he said he watched the Colts game on Sunday, but wouldn’t say where. Officers told Jiam that his sister had seen him leave the Meridian Street home on Sunday, but Jiam said he didn’t go in the house that day.
When asked flatly if he’d stabbed his mother, Jiam told officers she wasn’t his mother. He told the investigators that if he didn’t live in the house, then he felt he didn’t qualify to be her son. When told that his mother was dead, Jiam asked what happened and then asked to see pictures of the crime scene, according to the court documents.
Officers noted during their conversation with Jiam that his only concern was that “a policeman pointed a gun at him with a school bus close.”
Jiam went on to tell officers about how he was tried on Monday morning and couldn’t walk his dog like he did every day. An officer asked Jiam if he was tired from stabbing his mother. Jiam bragged that he wouldn’t be tired from such an event because he boxes at the gym.
At one point in the conversation, Jiam told the officers they’d already solved the case and told the detectives they were wasting their time.
“You are a detective,” he reportedly said. “If you say you saw things and (my sister) said she saw things then what do you have?”
“You solved it!” he declared. “What else do you want me to say?’
A DNA swab was taken of Jiam before he was transported to the Madison County Correctional Complex.
Jiam faces a preliminary charge of murder. The Madison County Prosecutor stated the investigation is ongoing and Jiam wouldn’t be read his official charges until Friday.
