Fort Wayne Homeowner Charged in the Khadolphee Taylor Shooting

Martell Pickens, 30, was booked without bond on Sept. 8 on a reckless homicide charge in the May 7 shooting death of Khadolphee Demarco Taylor. Court papers say the Fort Wayne homeowner left his house on the 500 block of East Rudisill Boulevard with a loaded Glock.45-caliber handgun, told the 25-year-old man to back up, and fired one round into his chest.

The Allen County Coroner’s Office had already ruled Taylor’s death a homicide and logged it as the seventh in the county in 2026. The charging theory is narrower than murder. Detectives wrote that Pickens walked out of a safe house to confront a man he knew was unarmed.

Pickens Left the House With a Loaded Glock

Fort Wayne officers were sent to the 500 block of East Rudisill Boulevard at about 2:45 a.m. on May 7 after a neighbor reported a suspicious man trying car doors and trying to get into a house. While they were still rolling, dispatch said a shot had been fired. Officers found Taylor with a single gunshot wound to the chest, started aid, and sent him to a hospital, where he died.

Pickens stayed put. He handed police the Glock and agreed to talk, according to a probable cause affidavit by Fort Wayne Police Detective Brian Martin that a judge signed on Friday, Sept. 5. He said he had been woken, learned that a suspicious man was trying to get into cars, armed himself, and went outside.

He told detectives he confronted Taylor outside the house and ordered him to “back up.” He also said Taylor was unarmed, looked intoxicated or high, and kept walking toward him, so he fired one round into his chest. Video from Pickens’s own cameras, which he gave to police, matches that sequence in the filing.

On the recording, Taylor wanders the block for a long stretch, tries to open the home’s screen door, walks away, and later comes back. Pickens is then seen beside his parked car with the gun out as Taylor comes toward the driver’s side. Seconds before the shot he is heard yelling “What are you doing?” and “Back up.” Taylor ran across the street and collapsed.

THE NIGHT OF MAY 7

1. May 7, 2026, about 20 minutes before the shooting: Officers stop a car Taylor is driving, note behavior consistent with intoxication or mental impairment and a suspended license, tow the car, and tell him to walk home.
2. May 7, 2026, after 2:30 a.m.: Pickens, at home in the 500 block of East Rudisill Boulevard, hears Taylor out on the street. A neighbor calls 911 about a man trying vehicle doors and trying to get into a house.
3. May 7, 2026, about 2:45 a.m.: While officers are still on the way, the 911 caller reports a gunshot. Police find Taylor with one wound to the chest. He dies at a hospital.
4. May 8, 2026: The Allen County Coroner’s Office names Taylor, rules the death a homicide, and counts it as the seventh in the county that year.

The city’s May 7 homicide alert did not name a suspect. It said officers found an adult male with an apparent gunshot wound, started aid until medics arrived, and moved the case to the homicide team, the crime scene unit, and the air unit.

Reckless Homicide Carries One to Six Years

Allen Superior Court papers filed in early September charge Pickens with reckless homicide, not murder. Under Indiana’s reckless homicide statute, a person who recklessly kills another human being commits a Level 5 felony. Indiana sets that level at one to six years in prison, with a three-year advisory sentence, and a fine of up to $10,000.

The affidavit copies the state’s definition of reckless conduct almost word for word. Indiana law treats a person as acting recklessly when the conduct shows a plain, conscious, and unjustifiable disregard of harm that might result, and that disregard is a substantial deviation from acceptable standards of conduct. That is the sentence Martin wrote into the probable cause filing.

Based upon the investigation, Pickens knowingly armed himself and voluntarily exited the safety of his residence to confront Taylor. During that confrontation, Pickens intentionally discharged a loaded firearm, striking Taylor in the chest and causing his death. Under these circumstances, there is probable cause to believe Pickens recklessly killed Khadolphee D. Taylor by engaging in conduct constituting a plain, conscious, and unjustifiable disregard of harm, the disregard involving a substantial deviation from acceptable standards of conduct.

Brian Martin, Fort Wayne Police detective, probable cause affidavit

Investigators wrote that the shooting was not justified and that they found no evidence Taylor had a weapon. Pickens was booked into the Allen County Jail on Monday, Sept. 8, 124 days after the shot, and held without bond. No later hearing date turned up in court coverage through late September, so the case had not yet gone to trial.

What Indiana’s Self-Defense Statute Covers

Indiana does give homeowners a wide right to use force, including deadly force, and it does not require a retreat first. The catch in this file is where Pickens was standing when he fired, and what the papers say he knew about Taylor.

Indiana’s use-of-force statute splits the map. Inside a dwelling, on the curtilage (the yard and ground around the house), or in an occupied motor vehicle, a person may use deadly force with no duty to retreat if that person reasonably believes the force is needed to stop an unlawful entry or attack. On a sidewalk or other property, deadly force is tied to a different test: a reasonable belief that it is needed to prevent serious bodily injury or a forcible felony.

WHAT THE STATUTE PROTECTS

• Person or third person: Deadly force is allowed, with no duty to retreat, if the person reasonably believes it is needed to stop serious bodily injury or a forcible felony.
• House, yard, occupied car: Deadly force is allowed, with no duty to retreat, if the person reasonably believes it is needed to prevent or end an unlawful entry or attack on the dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.
• Other property: Ordinary force may be used to stop a trespass or criminal interference, but deadly force is allowed only when the serious-injury or forcible-felony test is also met.
• The aggressor limit: Force is not justified if the person starts the fight, unless that person pulls back, makes that intent clear, and the other person keeps going.

Martin’s filing leans on that last pair of rules. Pickens, in the detective’s telling, left a safe house, stood by his own car with a gun out, and shot a man he had already judged unarmed. A jury could still find that Taylor’s advance created a reasonable fear. Prosecutors filed anyway, which is how a homeowner who stayed on scene and turned over the gun ended up in jail without bond.

Law-school explainers of Indiana’s stand-your-ground law stress the same split. The no-retreat rule is broad, and the castle piece is stronger still inside the house and yard, but deadly force in a street confrontation still has to rest on a reasonable fear of serious injury or a forcible felony. Trying car doors and pulling at a screen door, as the video is described, is not the same as a completed break-in, and Taylor was never charged with anything. He died.

Police Had Already Sent Taylor Walking

The same affidavit that charges Pickens also describes a police contact about 20 minutes before the gunshot. Officers had pulled over a vehicle Taylor was driving. They wrote that his behavior fit intoxication or mental impairment and that his license was already suspended. They towed the car and told him to walk home.

Soon after, a 911 caller reported a suspicious man in the neighborhood. Court papers say Taylor was trying to get into vehicles and tried to get inside one house. Pickens’s cameras, per the filing, show the screen-door try, a walk-away, and a return. Then comes the encounter at the car.

That earlier stop does not decide whether the shot was lawful. It does sit in the file as an awkward fact. Officers had already found Taylor impaired, taken his car, and put him on foot in the same south-side blocks. A neighbor was on the phone with 911 before police got back. The louder problem in the charging story is not a missing gun on Taylor. It is that the man who fired had left a locked house to meet someone the department had just released onto the sidewalk.

Pickens’s own words in the affidavit cut both ways. He said he saw an unarmed man who looked drunk or high, told him to back up, and fired when the man kept coming. Staying on scene and handing over the pistol will matter at trial. So will the detective’s line that he “voluntarily exited the safety of his residence.”

East Rudisill’s Next Killing Came 23 Days Later

Taylor’s death was not the last gunshot on that street in May. On May 30, at about 12:23 a.m., Fort Wayne police were pulled to the 200 block of East Rudisill Boulevard, between a Shell station and a Little Caesars, after a Flock audio alert flagged possible gunfire near Clinton Street and Rudisill. A 911 call came in one minute later. Officers found an unconscious man with gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The coroner later named him as 22-year-old Carlos Roberto Torrijos and counted the death as the 14th homicide in Allen County in 2026. Police arrested 21-year-old Aquileo Reducindo about 4 a.m. in the 100 block of East Superior Street and charged him with murder. A charging affidavit described an argument at the gas station, a shove, and nine shell casings on the ground.

The May 30 Rudisill shooting alert asked for witnesses and pointed people to Crime Stoppers and the P3 Tips app. That killing was a street fight with a named murder defendant. Taylor’s case is a homeowner on his own block. They share a road and a month, not a motive.

The 200 block sits west of the 500 block on the same boulevard, on Fort Wayne’s south side. 23 days separated the two deaths. That is a local fact, not a theory about the whole city. It is also why a May identification that looked like one more south-side homicide did not stay simple once the court file opened in September.

The County’s Count Reached 25 by Late September

When the coroner named Taylor on May 8, Allen County was at seven homicides for the year. A local tally that compiles coroner rulings, last updated at 3:52 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2026, still stood at 25. Eighteen people were added to that list after Taylor. The coroner identified Juron Sharell Stapleton, 21, and Tavion Lashawn Hamlet, 25, as the 24th and 25th after a Sept. 9 double homicide in the 800 block of Buchanan Street.

The same ledger splits 2026 this way: 21 deaths inside Fort Wayne city limits, two city deaths from injuries first suffered in an earlier year, one in the town of Yoder, and one police-action homicide. Guns accounted for 23 of the 25. Seventeen cases were listed as solved and eight as unsolved. Full-year counts in the same series were 31 in 2023, 41 in 2024, and 35 in 2025.

ALLEN COUNTY HOMICIDES BY YEAR

The summer stretch from Memorial Day to Labor Day 2026 was slower than the two summers before it, with nine homicides against 14 in 2025 and 16 in 2024. By the week of Labor Day the year-to-date count was 22, after 27-year-old Jacob Klotz was shot on Aug. 8 outside the Showgirl III nightclub. September then added San Maw as the 23rd and the Buchanan Street pair as 24 and 25.

Pickens is one defendant in that pile, and a unusual one. Most of the year’s gun deaths are being charged, when they are charged at all, as murder. His file is a Level 5 count that lives or dies on whether walking out of the house with a Glock, onto a sidewalk, to stop an unarmed man at a car, was a reasonable act or a reckless one. The county’s list last updated on Sept. 24 still stood at 25. Pickens had not yet gone to trial.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a pending criminal case and on Indiana statutes, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, a prediction of how a judge or jury will rule, or a finding that Martell Pickens is guilty or that the May 7 shooting was or was not justified. Readers with a self-defense, charging, or bond question should consult a licensed Indiana criminal-defense attorney who can review the actual court file. Counts, bond status, and charge language reflect the coroner’s numbered rulings, the Sept. 8 booking reports, and the probable cause affidavit as those records stood, and they can change as the case moves.