Late summer 2015 brought a double homicide to the rural community of Shoals, Indiana. The sequence began when the family of 52-year-old Raymond T. Tom Tharp reported him missing on a Tuesday evening in August. A Martin County deputy searching the next morning went to a property on Fred Sims Road and found 82-year-old homeowner Alan Sims dead in a detached garage from a single gunshot wound.

Investigators developed information pointing to 33-year-old Nathan Baker of Shoals, who had formerly lived on Sims’ property and had reportedly been seen there several times after being asked to leave. Deputies issued an alert for Tharp’s green 1997 Pontiac Sunfire. Later that afternoon Lawrence County deputies located the car; the driver fled, crashed and was taken into custody. A shotgun recovered in the vehicle is believed to be the weapon used in the killings.

Officers returned to Sims’ property and discovered Tom Tharp’s body in a garden about 30 yards from the garage; Tharp is believed to have died of a single shotgun wound. Nathan Baker was charged with two counts of murder. Did anyone in the Shoals area have contact with Tharp or Sims in the days before they were found?