FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – It began with an ex-roommate looking for revenge.
It turned into a robbery where a man ended up duct taped to a chair and shot multiple times in the leg and shoulder.
Now, one of four people accused of being involved in a burglary gone wrong that left a man so badly wounded he may have trouble walking for the rest of his life is looking at 20 years in prison.
Brieon Gray, 22, pleaded guilty to a Level 1 felony count of burglary causing serious bodily injury in Allen Superior Court on Tuesday, admitting that he shot another man at least one time during the apartment break-in this past August.
Gray admitted to his role in the burglary as part of a deal with Allen County prosecutors. In return, they agreed to drop additional robbery and aggravated battery charges they levied against him and are recommending Gray be sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Three of those years are to be suspended.
Two other men and a woman accused of being involved in the robbery are also facing charges and have cases winding through the legal system.
The burglary happened Aug. 15 when three masked men entered an apartment on Reed Road while a woman waited in a car outside, according to Allen Superior Court documents.
One of the masked men carried an AK-47 while another wielded a handgun, court documents said.
Their motive for the robbery was to get revenge for the woman waiting in the car, identified as 21-year-old Autumn Hayden, who had been booted out of the apartment by her roommates previously.
According to court documents, the men used a key given to them by Hayden to enter the apartment.
The men have been identified as Gray, who carried the handgun, 21-year-old Jordan Herrerra and 20-year-old Cortes Antonio Morris, Jr., who armed himself with the AK-47.
Once inside the apartment, the three went to work binding a man living there to a chair with duct tape. When the man began to fight back, court documents said, Gray and Morris are accused of shooting him each one time.
The man suffered one gunshot wound to his leg and another gunshot wound to his shoulder.
Nearly a year after the shooting, the man still has trouble walking and controlling his ankle due to one of the bullets severing a nerve in his upper leg, court documents said.
The three men then left with an XBox gaming system and nothing else, according to court documents.
Investigators spent months trying to piece together the shooting, which led them to Hayden.
Hayden sent social media messages to her ex-boyfriend letting him know her roommates kicked her out and that she sought revenge.
“You friends kicked me out yesterday over cats. That’s cool tho ccuss be gone get what he deserves (sic),” one message said, according to court documents.
In an interview with detectives, Hayden said she drove Herrera and the other two men to the apartment while she waited in the car. She admitted in court documents to giving them a key to the apartment she still had despite being kicked out.
In video surveillance outside the apartment, investigators watched Hayden’s car pull up to the apartment complex and three men get out. They went inside the apartment and later came out carrying an XBox gaming system, according to court documents.
The XBox was later sold to a used gaming store by someone not connected to the robbery, court documents said.
All involved were rounded up this past December and charged with burglary causing serious bodily injury, robbery causing serious bodily injury and aggravated battery – counts that could land each in prison for decades.
Hayden and Morris are now set to stand trial in August.
Herrera is scheduled to plead guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors later this week, though details of that deal have not been released.
Gray is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 14.
