20-year-old faces 60+ years in prison for Brownsburg grandmother’s murder
DANVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — A 20-year-old man from South Bend was sentenced to more than 60 years in prison Wednesday for the murder of a Brownsburg grandmother in January.
Arion Cruthird was sentenced to 64 years in prison and given credit for 417 days served in jail while going through the court process, online court records show. Cruthird was initially listed as being from Indianapolis, but his current court records say he is from South Bend.
Alice Wright, 74, was beaten and stabbed.
According to court documents, Cruthird and Kiesha Summerhill, 19, of Indianapolis, went to Wright’s home on Jan. 5. Summerhill was a former home health aid for Alice’s husband, Kerney Wright, and Cruthird was Summerhill’s boyfriend.
They walked in an unlocked door, the documents said. Cruthird and Summerhill used a BB gun to threaten Alice, then took her to the kitchen to get cash out of the freezer. When Alice used her medical alert system to try to contact emergency assistance, Cruthird began to beat her. Cruthird then grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began stabbing Alice, leaving blood on the wall in the living room. The pair also struck Kerney several times with their fists, knocking him out of his wheelchair.
Court filings state “Kiesha and Arion believed that Alice had recognized Kiesha and she told Arion that he needed to kill her so they could not be identified.” The documents also state that “Kerney was kept alive because he could not identify them.”
Cruthird then took Alice to the bedroom and stabbed her in the back of head and neck.
The acquaintance said that Alice begged for her life and that Arion said he “felt sorry” for her because he could feel the “crushing” of her neck and jugular.
Cruthird and Summerville said they stole $1,500 and two guns. They said they got rid of the murder weapon.
On Wednesday, Cruthird pleaded guilty to murder and, in a plea deal, had an additional charge of murder and charges of robbery and battery dismissed in Hendricks Superior Court 5. The court agreed to consider a motion to reintegrate Cruthird into society with eight years left on the sentence.
As part of plea deal, Summerhill on Nov. 9 had charges of murder, battery and robbery against her dismissed, but had a new count of burglary was made against her. Her sentencing hearing is set for 1 p.m. Dec. 7 in Hendricks Superior Court 5.
