Man agrees to plead guilty but mentally ill in murder of 10-year-old son
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A 40-year-old Indianapolis man plans to plead guilty but mentally ill to killing his 10-year-old son in 2020, court documents show.
A proposed agreement filed Monday in Marion Superior Court 28 shows an attorney and prosecutor in the case of Anthony Dibiah have agreed he would plead guilty but mentally ill in the murder of 10-year-old Nakota Kelly.
Court documents indicate that Kelly had warned his mother of his father’s murder threats, and that the boy was fearful to visit his father after being told he would be spending a weekend with him in July 2020.
Officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department got a search warrant and on July 19, 2020, entered an apartment in the 6000 block of West Lake South Drive. That’s near I-465 on the city’s west side between Rockville Road and 10th Street.
Officers found brain matter on the bathroom floor. Blood was splattered on the bathroom walls, floor and ceiling.
Dibiah was arrested around 4 p.m. July 19 after being located in Missouri.
Kelly’s body has never been found. His mother, Hayley Kelly, in April 2022, sued Dibiah and the Indiana Department of Child Services, in Marion Superior Court 11. In her lawsuit, Hayley Kelly says she told a Child Services worker on July 14, 2020, that Nakota was afraid of spending time with his father.
“Oh, I’m dead. Don’t expect me to come home,” Hayley claims Nakota told her. “My dad is going to kill me.”
No hearings are scheduled in Hayley Kelly’s lawsuit, according to online court records.
In the proposed plea agreement, a prosecutor and a defense attorney agreed that Dibiah’s sentence would be no more than 55 years.
A judge would need to sign off on the proposed plea agreement, and online court records show no hearing had been scheduled by late Monday afternoon.
Previous coverage
