New info on Waterloo cop shooting

WATERLOO Ind. (AP/WANE) - FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) -- An Indiana woman whose boyfriend shot a police officer conspired with him to rob people at gunpoint to get money for a trip to Utah so he could avoid a prison term on drug charges, according to court documents.

Ralph Hardiek shot Waterloo Deputy Marshal Stephen Brady on Dec. 15 as the officer spoke to Julie Marie King about an incident in which King and Hardiek knocked on a home's front door and asked the homeowner for help getting their car out of a ditch. Hardiek was later shot to death by police.

A probable cause affidavit filed Friday said King, 33, and Hardiek, 41, had planned to go door-to-door robbing people at gunpoint to get money for a trip to Utah so Hardiek could avoid being sent to prison on a drug charge.

King was arrested Friday after being released from a Fort Wayne hospital and charged with felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aiding in attempted murder.

The felony murder charge accuses her of committing a crime in which a person is killed -- in
this case Hardiek. She remained Saturday in the DeKalb County Jail, where she's being held without bail, the Journal Gazette reported ( http://bit.ly/y1QW48 ).

A week before the shooting, Hardiek missed a Noble County sentencing hearing on a charge of dealing methamphetamine. His plea agreement called for a 12-year sentence, of which he would serve six years.

The affidavit outlines how this looming sentence motivated Hardiek and King in the days before Brady -- who has since been released from a hospital -- was shot.

The Auburn couple stayed with one of King's friends near Coldwater, Mich., in early December. The friend told investigators Hardiek and King asked for his help in modifying their guns, including filing off trigger guards, so they could be fired more easily.

The friend's son told investigators the couple told him they needed money to go to Utah so Hardiek could avoid prison.

On Dec. 13, King and Hardiek drove to K&T Guns in New Haven to buy the special ammunition needed for the gun that Hardiek ultimately used to shoot Brady. Owner Keith Hinton said he specifically remembers the pair coming in.

"Immediately the way they acted, came in with headgear on, sunglasses on, it raises an alarm anyway," he said. "They were splitting up, trying to separate and just doing the typical things that crooks shouldn't be doing."

Hinton said King was acting more strange than Hardiek, but he was suspicious of both of them. "The guy, he went as far as loading his gun in the store and I stopped him. So it's like he was wanting to do something here but between me and my regular customer, I guess they chose not to," he said.

On Dec. 14, the couple robbed a man -- neither the friend nor his son-- of his wallet at gunpoint in the Michigan home and then drove back to Indiana, the affidavit said.

In Waterloo, the couple's car got stuck on a muddy road. About 2 a.m. on Dec. 15 the couple knocked on the door of a home about 2 1/2 miles from where their car was stuck, and King told the woman who answered she wanted the woman's husband to use his truck to free their car, the affidavit said.

The woman refused, and about 45 minutes later she told Brady, who was at a nearby gas station, about the couple. Brady and a Waterloo officer then began driving around looking for Hardiek and King.

Brady, 47, told investigators he found them and asked the couple for identification, but they said they didn't have any. Brady said he was asking King her name when Hardiek shot him in the face.

Hardiek was shot to death about three hours later, and King critically injured by officers as the pair hid beneath the deck of a home about two blocks from where Brady was shot.

The affidavit said the pair was "wound tightly together" and refused officers' demands to surrender before Hardiek pulled out a gun and police fired on him and King.
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net