Artwork lives on
Homicide victims remembered in service that displayed portraits they had inspired; hate crime not mentioned in police report
Milton Lindgren was remembered Thursday by the art he inspired.
As the Indianapolis Men's Chorus sang, a group of Lindgren's friends viewed portraits of Lindgren and his partner, Eric Hendricks, who were slain last month in their home.
"He was about the kindest, most gentle person you would ever want to meet," said Pastor Dave Dehnke of Harvest Lutheran Church in Mooresville, which Lindgren attended. "The irony was that he died in such a tragically brutal fashion."
Lindgren was a student and model at the Indianapolis Art Center in Broad Ripple, where the memorial service was held. His features, which his friends said reminded them of Abraham Lincoln, inspired other artists, who honored him with a display of their portraits of Lindgren at the service.
The service was organized by Indiana Equality, a gay rights organization that has lobbied the Indiana General Assembly for legislation to add penalties for hate crimes against gays.
Lindgren, 70, and Hendricks, 73, were found dead Oct. 20 at their home in the 9100 block of Middlebury Way. An autopsy showed they might have been dead for as long as two weeks.
They had been together as a couple since Lindgren's divorce, said his daughter, Shahannah Roudebush.
"I accepted him and loved him for who he was," Roudebush said before the service. "He didn't go out and announce it, but he was comfortable with it."
The man who reported finding the bodies, Michael L. Brown, 56, later was charged with murder in their slayings. Brown has been arrested in California and is being held there. Matthew Symons, a spokesman for the Marion County prosecutor's office, said he expects Brown to waive extradition, which would allow him to be returned to Indiana without a hearing.
On Aug. 16, Lindgren reported that his telephone and cable lines were cut and a note with a slur about sexual orientation was nailed to a door. That has led some to describe the case as a hate crime, but the probable-cause affidavit filed in connection with the murder charges doesn't mention hate as a motive.
Police investigators found that the victims' credit card accounts were being misused by Brown. In an affidavit, homicide detective Robert Flack said Brown, who once lived with the victims, had purchased thousands of dollars in merchandise using Hendricks' credit cards.
The document also says that in February, someone tried to change Hendricks' mailing address through the Camby post office to an address used by Brown. The victims learned about that in September and were upset, the document says.
Police were told by several people that Brown falsely claimed to be a doctor at Clarian West Medical Center in Hendricks County, according to the affidavit.
According to a police report, Brown and a neighbor went to the victims' home on Oct. 20 to check on them because Brown had not seen them in a week or two. He and the neighbor entered the house through a rear window, and Brown told police he found the men dead -- and with head injuries -- in separate upstairs bedrooms.
Brown also told police that Lindgren and Hendricks might have been harassed by people in the neighborhood and someone, whose name he didn't know, who used to live with the men, according to the report. Sometime after reporting the crime, Brown left the state, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The state has no hate- or bias-crimes laws that carry criminal penalties, but Indiana does require law enforcement to report such crimes to the Indiana State Police. Those are defined as crimes motivated by hate for people based on their race, religion or sexual orientation.
Such crimes are relatively uncommon in the city, said Lt. Robert Boydston of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's strategic investigations branch. So far this year, one reported crime -- a vandalism -- has been classified as motivated by hate.
Call Star reporter Kevin O'Neal at (317) 444-2760.
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