INDIANAPOLIS — Family members of the man accused of fatally wounding an IMPD officer testified Thursday that they started noticing mental health and behavioral changes in him before the murder.
Elliahs Dorsey admitted to firing the shots that killed Officer Breann Leath on April 9, 2020, as she responded with a team of officers to an east side apartment for a domestic dispute call.
A woman at the Wellington Square Apartments called for help in ejecting Dorsey from her unit due to his erratic behavior. Dorsey confessed to firing shots through a closed door that struck Officer Leath in the outer hallway.
Larry Dorsey Sr. explained to jurors that his son had played football while growing up and eventually became a hard-hitting middle linebacker at Arlington High School.
Dorsey said he never observed any concussion symptoms due to his son’s football career.
The father testified that in the days leading up to the killing, his son expressed concerns about his own safety, claiming, “Somebody’s out to kill you, too.”
Questions from the jurors revealed that Dorsey Sr. was never concerned enough about his son’s behavior to refer him for a medical evaluation or take his guns away.
Dorsey’s older brother, Larry Dorsey Jr., said Elliahs began wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying guns while expressing paranoia in public situations.
“’Somebody’s out to get our family,’” Dorsey Jr. recalled his brother telling him in a phone call the night before the shooting that killed Leath.
Dorsey Jr. said he tried to reason with his younger brother but, “I was just talking to empty space,” and the paranoia continues to this day as Dorsey sits in jail awaiting trial.
The defense team has sought to portray its client as mentally ill or insane at the time of the killing.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office withdrew its attempt to seek the death penalty after two court-appointed psychiatrists determined Dorsey showed signs of mental illness.
Jurors are faced with four potential verdicts:
- Guilty
- Not guilty
- Guilty but mentally ill
- Not responsible due to insanity
