UPDATE:
Daniel Gentry reached a plea agreement for his murder charge. He was sentenced to 45 years in the Indiana Department of Correction. He enters with 589 days of jail credit and 196 days of good time credit.
ORIGINAL STORY:
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis woman was beaten to death and stabbed dozens of times on the city’s northwest side.
Her alleged killer is now behind bars accused of the murder.
The victim’s body was dumped in the woods on Hollingsworth Drive and partially covered with debris last week.
According to court records, the killing appears to have taken place following an argument over just $30.
Police were first called to the wooded dead end street to investigate a disturbance last Tuesday.
Police found a man covered in mud with bloody hands. That man, Daniel Gentry, claimed he wounded himself searching for his dogs the woods.
Gentry was allowed to leave the scene, and victim’s body wasn’t yet found.
Three hours later, police came back to the scene and found a red truck stuck in the mud with blood in the back, but again the victim’s body was not discovered.
Eight hours later, police returned to the neighborhood a third time when a home detention officer noticed a woman’s GPS monitor hadn’t moved for more than six hours.
That GPS device led officers to finally find the body of 39-year-old Chrishteena Pauline Veach dead in the woods.
“Nobody knows anything. Nobody saw anything because it’s too dark. There is no lights,” said neighbor Rhonda Taylor.
Neighbors like Rhonda didn’t see the crime being committed but wish the city would install better lighting on the street.
“A life ended in a place it shouldn’t have ended, and had there been lights, maybe it wouldn’t have ended here,” said Taylor. “We really just need the city to cooperate and help us keep this a safe neighborhood.”
According to the affidavit, a witness claimed Gentry, who owned the abandoned red truck and was the same man found covered in blood and mud at the scene, confessed to beating the victim with a baseball bat and dumping her body three miles north of his home.
An autopsy found the victim was stabbed 24 times in the back after she died from a blow to the head with a bat.
Court records claim Gentry told police he did it because, “She was fighting with my wife.”
Just before being arrested, police say the suspect injected himself with fentanyl before being taken to the Marion County Jail, where he’s being held without bond.
