Mother seeks advice to solve January 2023 teen murders

INDIANAPOLIS — Kelyn Crittenden had never been to the Hillside neighborhood where her son was killed on Jan. 4, 2023, until she agreed to meet me for an interview this weekend for the latest Indy Unsolved.

“I didn’t think it was a free place here and I never thought it was an alley here,” Crittenden said. We were standing at the intersection of 18th and Ingram, in front of an abandoned church, on a street off I-70 on the east side of town.

“Wo, that makes me think someone sneaked up on him. He never saw this coming. Whatever his reasons for being here, he wasn't here to harm anyone, but someone brought him here to harm them.

Brandon Banks was 17 years old and was scheduled to return to school the day after Christmas break at the school where his mother had transferred him following a beef in his old neighborhood in northeast Indy.

“He had an altercation with some young men at his high school, Lawrence North High School. Several young men who went to school there didn’t like it,” Crittenden said. “I understand that kids get involved, they argue, they fight, but when someone shoots, to me it's a problem, it's a threat and I never wanted my son to be involved in this.”

Banks had worked in fast food restaurants and considered a career in the military after graduation.

On the day of his death, the teenager was having his hair cut on the west side. Banks drove his mother's car but never picked it up from work.

“So at 3:17 p.m., I got this exact text message, I said, 'Hey, son, what are you doing?'” Crittenden said. “Come to find out, while I was texting him at 3:17 p.m., the report of shots fired was at 3:20 p.m. So I texted my kid in the middle of all this, or literally right before.

Minutes later, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers arrived and found Banks shot to death in the front seat of his mother's Kia.

“It’s just foreign territory. It’s not an area we would have gone to,” said Crittenden, who wondered why her son would go to a part of town unfamiliar to the family.

I asked her what she thought Banks' motivation was for coming to a side street in a neighborhood that was so difficult to cross.

“That he met someone here,” she said. “I know it had to be something like this because I know he wouldn't have driven here, especially if he had come alone to an empty parking lot near a church I've never been to. “

Crittenden told me that police told him they had the names of some potential suspects and that they had carefully examined the surrounding community known as IMPD North District 12. The general area has been the site of four murders in the 12 months, including Banks. 'homicide.

“It's either this neighborhood or someone who knew him from when we lived on 46th Street and German Church when we lived in this neighborhood, someone who went to school with him in Lawrence North, somebody knows,” Crittenden said. “My son didn’t deserve this. He did not deserve to be murdered, even in the way or manner in which he was murdered. He didn't deserve this.

If you have any information about the incident that occurred in the 1800 block of Ingram Street on January 4, 2023, call Crime Stoppers at (317) 262-TIPS. Your information could be worth a $1,000 reward.