Daniel Nitzsche, 52, was fatally shot on November 19, 2020, in East Chicago, Indiana, during what authorities described as a robbery. Before he died at St. Catherine Hospital, he told responding officers that two males wearing ski masks had robbed and shot him.

Investigators quickly focused on 22-year-old Leon Taylor after witness statements and surveillance footage tied a silver Dodge Charger to the scene. When officers stopped the vehicle, a female driver identified the man who fled the car as her boyfriend, Leon Taylor, and said she had driven Taylor and his 14-year-old friend to East Chicago on the day of the murder. Taylor escaped from a prisoner transport van on December 14, 2020, but was recaptured two days later and was charged with murder and murder in the perpetration of a robbery in connection with Nitzsche’s death.

Lake County prosecutors dropped the murder charges against Taylor on December 29, 2020; he was later charged in a separate June 28, 2020, killing of 17-year-old Nicholas Pisani, pleaded guilty to that murder and received a 60-year sentence. The status of the investigation into Daniel Nitzsche’s death and any action involving the 14-year-old alleged accomplice have not been made public.

Did anyone in East Chicago recognize the silver Dodge Charger or have information about that November 19, 2020 robbery?