Lawrence Pucalik, 33, was fatally shot on November 14, 1980, while working an off-duty security post at a Holiday Inn on Cline Avenue in Hammond, Indiana. A Hammond police officer of nearly seven years, he went to intervene in an early-morning robbery attempt at about 3:00 a.m., was struck in the neck by gunfire, and died after being taken to St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago. He had been due to receive a departmental Top Gun award just hours later.

Decades later, a cold case unit charged three men in 2012: James Hill, Pierre Catlett, and Larry Mayes. Mayes was declared medically incompetent in 2014 and the charges against him were dismissed. Hill, 17 at the time of the killing, was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to 47 years (later reduced to 40 years on appeal in 2019). Catlett, then 30 at the time of the murder, faced repeated delays in his case.

Subsequent developments raised questions about the prosecution’s evidence when DNA from a towel in the alleged getaway car did not match Hill, Catlett, or Mayes. The conviction against Hill was set aside in May 2021 and, after review, a judge granted motions to permanently dismiss murder charges in March 2022. Does anyone have information about Pucalik’s night at the hotel or the robbery that could shed light on what happened?