Zionsville Rocked By Double Homicide

Katherine Hamilton-Giehll (left) with her son, Raymond

This has been a crazy day. A prominent member of the Wabash College staff, Lucius Hamilton, III, 61, appeared at the home of his niece in an upscale Zionsville neighborhood in the 6800 block of Old Hunt Club Road and shot and killed her and her four-year old son early this morning. The victims are Katherine Hamilton-Giehll, 31, and her son, Raymond. Katherine was found dead near the front door of her home, while Raymond's body was found in front of the TV in the home's living room. Katherine had just turned 31 today.

Police soon learned that Giehll's uncle was the chief suspect in the fatal shootings. That led to a lock down of the Crawfordsville campus of Wabash College where Hamilton had been seen earlier in the day driving a white van owned by the college. Hamilton was in charge of major gifts at Wabash College. A short while ago, I began hearing helicopters above my downtown Indianapolis office. Police searching for Hamilton converged on the Hilton Hotel at the corner of Market and Illinois where Hamilton reportedly checked into a room. After a short stand-off with police, Hamilton has apparently taken his own life by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

It's not clear what the motive for these heinous killings were. I found just one Indiana civil court listing with Hamilton's name. That was the estate of his father, Lucius Hamilton, II. Hamilton and his brother, Russell, served jointly as personal representatives of their father's estate. Russell was the father of Katherine and grandfather of Raymond, the two victims of today's shootings. Russell passed away in 2012, leaving behind his wife, Ruth, and three children, including Katherine. He was a long-time reserve officer for the Marion Co. Sheriff's Department and also worked at First Investors for many years. Lucius Hamilton lived in a very upscale neighborhood at 1430 W. 106 Street in Carmel with his wife, Liz Hamilton, just west of where Ditch Road intersects with 106th Street.

Photo of Katherine's family

I found no past criminal record for Lucius other than minor traffic arrests for speeding. It appears that his father was a wealthy man. Whether there were disagreements over his father's estate among other family members is not clear. His father's estate was handled as an unsupervised estate. It was opened in June 2007 and closed in December 2007, which is a pretty quick administration of an estate. Hamilton's father co-owned Sentinel Printing and ran The White Baking Company for many years. He also served on the board of Indiana National Bank and the American Bakers Association.

Lucius Hamilton, III

UPDATE: Local news reports confirm Hamilton's beef with Katherine involved money, presumably what he didn't get from his father's estate that he felt he should have gotten. The Boone County Sheriff's Department is investigating the family's multi-million dollar trust his late father established prior to his death.