by Douglas Ankney

On December 8, 2023, the Indiana city of Elkhart agreed to pay former state prisoner Andrew Royer, then 44, nearly $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed over his wrongful murder conviction and subsequent 17 years of unjustified imprisonment.

In October 2023, Royer filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint against the city and officers with its police department (EPD)—including Carlton Conway, Mark Daggy, Paul Converse, Peggy Snider, Todd Thayer, Michael Sigsbee, Joel Bourdon and Brett Coppins—along with Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department (ECSD) and Deputy Dennis Chapman, plus County Prosecutor Vicki Becker.

According to the Complaint, Royer, who is mentally disabled, resided at Waterfall High-Rise, an apartment complex for the elderly and disabled in Elkhart. On November 29, 2002, the body of another Waterfall tenant, 94-year-old Helen Sailor, was discovered in her room. Initially, EPD zeroed in on two suspects for Sailor’s murder: Larry Wood and Tony Thomas.

Wood also lived at the Waterfall and was responsible for delivering Sailor’s prescription medication; a red residue found in his apartment was discovered on her body. Thomas was a homeless convicted murderer with a key to his grandmother’s apartment at the Waterfall. Witnesses reported seeing him acting belligerently and apparently high on drugs in an elevator on the day of the murder.

But by summer 2003, Daggy was convinced that Lana Canen was involved in Sailor’s murder. He had previously investigated Canen for a string of Waterfall burglaries, but Daggy never developed probable cause to arrest her. In September 2003, Canen was a passenger in a car driven by parolee Nina Porter when it was stopped by EPD cops. Canen was arrested for Sailor’s murder. Porter was cited and permitted to go home.

However, Conway arrested Porter the next day, allegedly on an outstanding warrant—a ruse to interrogate her about the murder for hours. Porter denied any knowledge and maintained that Canen had never spoken with her about it. But Conway fed details of the murder and threatened trouble if she did not cooperate, including having her children taken away. The detective then fabricated a statement for Porter, implicating Canen and Royer in the murder, and Conway promised to pay her $2,000 for making it. Daggy and Sigsbee later confirmed that Porter was paid $2,000 for testimony consistent with her statement.

None of this misconduct was disclosed to Royer’s defense attorneys. Meanwhile, even though fully cognizant that Royer had “the mind of a child” and was under psychiatric care and taking psychiatric medications, Defendants took no measures to accommodate his disabilities prior to or during interrogation. No lawyer, social worker, doctor or family member was present. In less than a minute, Defendants read Royer his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and he waived them.

Over two days of ensuing interrogation, Conway fed details of the crime while Royer denied any involvement and steadfastly maintained his innocence. Near the end, Conway observed that Royer was “very mentally fatigued and having a hard time maintaining concentration,” and describing him as “drifting, disabled, defeated, emotional, broken down, tired, and fatigued.” Instead of terminating the interrogation, Conway then took Royer’s false confession.

Daggy and Snider observed the interrogation via closed-circuit monitoring. Daggy later admitted it was “super leading” and among the worst he had ever seen. Snider expressed that Royer was the only person in her entire career whom she felt was charged with a crime he did not commit. But neither expressed their views to Defense attorneys prior to Royer’s trial. Becker, then an assistant prosecutor, aided in the interrogation but failed to disclose this to Royer’s attorneys prior to trial. Records showed that Defendants were concerned that Royer’s initial false confession was inconsistent with the evidence, so the interrogation resumed a second day, when Conway coerced Royer into changing his story to match a scripted statement.

Prior to trial, Conway was removed from homicide investigations because of sustained allegations of misconduct in an unrelated case. Converse feared that Conway would jeopardize future investigations. But again, his removal was not disclosed to Defense counsel.

The state then enlisted Chapman to falsely testify that a fingerprint from a medicine container at the crime scene matched Canen’s prints. The state crime lab rebutted that testimony post-trial. In fact, the print belonged to Hoffer. However, at the time, Chapman also falsely testified that he had worked as an FBI latent print examiner. Based on all this bogus evidence, Canen and Royer were convicted at a joint 2004 trial.

In 2012, state police proved that the print wasn’t Canen’s, and she was exonerated. A four-day 2019 hearing led to ruling in March 2020, vacating Royer’s conviction and granting a new trial. The following month, he was released from prison after serving more than 17 years for a crime he did not commit. When the decision vacating his conviction was affirmed on appeal, the State moved to dismiss the charges against him on June 30, 2021.

Per the settlement, $10,050,000 is aid to Royer and his attorneys with Loevy & Loevy in Chicago, plus an additional $1,675,000 for Royer alone, to be paid in monthly installments. The agreement did not resolve claims against County Defendants, which remain pending; PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Royer v. City of Elkhart, USDC (N.D. Ind.), Case No. 3:22-cv-00254.

In affirming the grant to Royer of a new trial, the state Court of Appeals had withering criticism for Conway, who “withheld the truth when he attempted to bolster the reliability of Royer’s confessions by saying Royer knew details about the murder which were not known to the public.” The Court found Conway’s perjury “particularly galling” given his position “overseeing the juvenile bureau and the special victims unit” of EPD. See: State v. Royer, 166 N.E.3d 380 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021).

Conway was fired in September 2021, but he resigned before his termination hearing.  

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