Insets, from left: Krystal Walton, (WXIN) Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy John Durm (Marion County Sheriff’s Office) and Orlando Mitchell (Marion County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The location where Mitchell crashed and was returned to custody (WXIN).
At 36, murder defendant Orlando Mitchell will be a very, very old man if he somehow manages to live out his punishment for gunning down Krystal Walton, 32, the mother of his son, outside a day care. Records in Marion County, Indiana, show he was sentenced Tuesday to 66 years in prison for killing her and violating a no-contact order on Sept. 16, 2022. The 746 days of time-served credit — a little more than two years — puts a small dent in his remaining time.
This does not, however, take into account his upcoming murder trial for strangling Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy John Durm, 61, during a failed escape attempt on July 10, 2023. This is currently scheduled for August 2026.
As previously reported, Mitchell waited outside a day care in Indianapolis as Walton separately arrived. Walton dropped off her children at the facility around 7:30 a.m., and that’s when Mitchell ambushed her, gunning her down.
Police spoke with Mitchell’s grandmother at the scene, who told them that she had not spoken to her son in over a month because he had threatened to kill Walton and make it a “murder-suicide,” NBC affiliate WTHR reported.
A few hours after the shooting, officers received a tip about Mitchell’s vehicle, which was seen at the day care around the time of the shooting.
Mitchell was shot in the leg during a confrontation with officers. As he was being wheeled into the ambulance, he was not shy about admitting to killing Walton.
“I shot that b—,” he said, according to WTHR. “I shot that b— in the face.”
The fatal shooting followed years in which Mitchell terrorized the victim.
“If he couldn’t see his son, she wasn’t gonna be in his life either,” his mother told officers, relaying one of his threats, according to an affidavit obtained by Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN.
Mitchell in 2021 was charged with choking the then-pregnant Walton and threatening to kill her. He dodged jail time with a guilty plea in July 2022, but violated the protective order in August 2022 by getting into the home of Walton’s mother, and telling the victim, “If you call the police, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
The next day, he texted her, writing, “I promise on my life I won’t stop until you lose everything.”
In 2023, as Mitchell faced charges for killing Walton, he used his handcuff chain to strangle Deputy Durm, a 38-year veteran, and stole his sheriff’s van. He crashed that, authorities said. Back to custody he went, and according to authorities, one more murder on his soul.
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