More than two decades have passed since a night, in October 1999, that saw 34 bullets fired into the rear of a house along West Bethel Avenue that was crowded with party-goers.
One of those attending the party — in what was described as an “unofficial” fraternity house, near the Ball State University campus — was 28-year-old Julian Brown of Gary, who was shot in the chest and died.
Three female guests also hit by the gunfire survived their wounds.
City police said three Muncie men who had been denied entry to the gathering had later returned with firearms. All three would be convicted of murder.
One of those defendants, Michael L, Bruno, now 46, — also found guilty of three counts of criminal recklessness — has launched a legal battle to win an early release from prison.
A petition for post-conviction relief filed last year by Bruno’s attorney, Cynthia Carter of Indianapolis, alleges “prosecutorial misconduct,” in part based on the involvement of then-Muncie police officer Jess Neal in the homicide case.
The document noted the “disgraced’ Neal’s later prosecution for participating in a bid-rigging scheme involving the Muncie Sanitary District that in 2002 resulted in the former officer serving a seven-month term in a federal prison.
Neal was one of eight people convicted after a years-long FBI investigation of public corruption in Muncie.
The petition acknowledges Neal did not testify at Bruno’s trial in 2000, but says the officer assisted prosecutors during the trial.
The petition claims three witnesses at Bruno’s trial would now testify they were “coerced” by prosecutors into providing false testimony against Bruno.
The document says one of the witnesses, DeJuan McPhaul, was “coerced into testifying against Bruno” by Neal, who had been McPhaul’s football coach at Southside High School.
According to the petition, another witness, Jerriel Wllilams, said his testimony at the 2000 trial came after Neal had threatened to charge him with drug-related crimes.
A third trial witness, Louis Abram, said in a sworn affidavit in 2021 that he had “testified falsely by the orders of detective Jess Neal, who worked as a security officer at Southside High School, where I attended at the time.”
The petition also alleges Bruno received ineffective assistance from his defense attorney during his trial.
In a response last year, Delaware County Prosecutor Eric Hoffman — who was not yet an attorney in 2000 and did not participate in Bruno’s trial — denied the allegations raised in the petition.
A hearing on the petition had been set for March 1 in Delaware Circuit Court 3, but it was postponed at the request of Bruno’s attorney. A new hearing date has not yet been set.
The Indiana Supreme Court upheld Bruno’s convictions in 2002. He was at first was sentenced to 78 years in prison by then-Judge Robert Barnet Jr., but his prison term was later reduced to 70 years after an appeal.
Bruno is now incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. A state Department of Correction website lists his projected release date as Nov. 18, 2035.
The other Muncie men convicted of murder in Julian Brown’s shooting death — Artie Thomas, now 49, and Terrance Manley, 43 — remain incarcerated. Both have projected release dates in 2030.