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Woman off to prison for illegally buying gun used in deputy’s murder

A photo of Boone County Sheriff's Deputy Jacob Pickett is displayed at a memorial. (WISH Photo, File)

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An Indianapolis woman has been sentenced for her role in buying the handgun used to murder a Boone County sheriff’s deputy in March 2018, the U.S. attorney for Indianapolis said in a news release Tuesday.

Love Rochon, 30, was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison for her illegal purchase of the gun used to kill Boone County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Pickett.

Rochon purchased the Taurus PT709 9mm handgun Feb. 28, 2017, from the Indy Gun Bunker store in Indianapolis. On the federal form that Rochon completed for her purchase, she gave a false statement under penalty of perjury regarding her residential address. Such a false statement violates federal law, and therefore Rochon’s acquisition of the Taurus handgun was illegal.

On March 2, 2018, Anthony Baumgardt shot and killed Pickett using the Taurus handgun. Baumgardt pleaded guilty to Pickett’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William L. McCoskey said during the sentencing that Rochon’s illegal purchase of the handgun was “the first link in a terrible and tragic chain of events leading to the murder of Jake Pickett.”

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