Former Chesterton bar bouncer to appeal murder conviction
Chesterton In Jan 31 2020
Christopher Dillard, found guilty in the murder of a Chesterton bartender and sentenced to the maximum 65 years in prison earlier this month, filed a notice of appeal Monday.
Plymouth attorney Janette Surrisi filed the notice on behalf of Dillard, according to the document filed with the Indiana Court of Appeals. Dillard, 53, of Hobart, is currently housed in the Indiana Department of Correction’s Reception Diagnostic Center in Plainfield, according to the filing.
In November, a 12-person jury found Dillard, a former bouncer at the Upper Deck Lounge in Chesterton, guilty of killing Nicole Gland, 23, of Portage, who was a bartender there. Dillard stabbed Gland to death on April 19, 2017, in her sport utility vehicle parked behind the bar after she left work, after she rebuffed his sexual advances, according to court testimony.
A Chesterton Tribune employee going to work discovered Gland’s body in her SUV behind the bar, authorities have said. An autopsy showed she died of multiple stab wounds.
During an emotional sentencing hearing Jan. 2 before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, Gland’s parents, Matthew and Jessica Gland, talked about the pain caused by the death of their daughter, described as someone who had a way about her that always made those around her smile and laugh.
“We want you to suffer in prison. We want you to die alone and afraid, just like our daughter,” Matthew Gland said then.
Porter County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Armando Salinas and Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ryan argued throughout the trial that there was extensive evidence for the jury in proving Dillard had killed Gland, including testimony from Dillard’s cellmates at the Porter County Jail to whom Dillard discussed details of the crime, and the discovery of his DNA on Gland.
Defense attorney Russell Brown Jr. said during the 2½-week trial that the Chesterton Police Department conducted a shoddy investigation of the crime, disregarding a knife found near the scene months later.
The guilty verdict came despite prosecutors’ inability to use the confession Dillard made about the crime during a police interrogation after the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled the confession was not permissible as evidence because police ignored Dillard’s repeated requests for an attorney.
