On the afternoon of Wednesday, February 28, 2024, a shooting near the North Gate parking lot at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana, left 47-year-old Joseph Renee Lane dead. Lane, a Carrollton, Georgia resident remembered as an avid outdoorsman who worked in construction and dreamed of being a cowboy, was found with an apparent gunshot wound to the chest and pronounced dead at the scene after multiple 911 calls to emergency dispatchers around 2:45 p.m.

Law enforcement from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and the City of Madison Police Department responded. Authorities detained 33-year-old John Dean McElwaney of Tallapoosa, Georgia, at the scene; police described the shooting as isolated and said there was no broader threat. McElwaney was booked the next morning on a preliminary charge of voluntary manslaughter, a Level 2 felony under Indiana law. The park’s North Gate was closed while DNR detectives and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office processed the scene.

The nature of the relationship between Lane and McElwaney and the motive for the confrontation have not been disclosed. If anyone knew Lane, McElwaney, or witnessed the incident at Clifty Falls State Park that afternoon, please come forward with information.