October 03, 2026
Arrest Made in 2006 Franklin Double Homicide of Blake and Chynna Dickus
Headline card by The Night Desk
More than twenty years after a young boy and his stepmother were killed by a long-unidentified assailant in their Franklin home, an arrest has been made in the case.
On Oct. 2, 2026, the Johnson County Prosecutor's Office announced two murder charges against Michael Jerome James for his role in the deaths of 10-year-old Blake Dickus and 26-year-old Chynna Dickus.
James, now 35, was 14 years old at the time of the double homicide.
The pair were found stabbed to death in their Aberdeen Drive home on the evening of July 24, 2006. Their family never stopped pushing for justice — even as the case went cold, Chynna and Blake's faces were shown on a billboard above Interstate 65.
Prosecutor Lance Hamner said the case has long haunted him.
"A primary driving force behind my decision to leave the bench as judge and run for prosecutor once again was to seek justice in this case," Hamner wrote in a news release after James' arrest. "This was something I could not talk about at the time."
The announcement comes just one week after Hamner's office raised the reward for information that helps solve the case from $25,000 to $100,000.
James' indictment was returned by a grand jury, which means authorities can't disclose any information about the case against him. As of publication, an initial hearing had not yet been scheduled in Johnson Circuit Court.
This story is developing. Anyone charged is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Source: IndyStar (USA Today) — read the original report
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