Father arrested in son's murder

A Morgan County man faces a preliminary murder charge for the fatal shooting of his 19-year-old son Sunday.

David Carrender, 49, is being held without bail in the Morgan County Jail and is expected to be arraigned Wednesday, Morgan County Sheriff Robert Downey said.
Along with a charge for murder, Downey said it is likely the prosecutor will tack on other charges, including criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon.

Wyatt Carrender was shot Sunday at about 8:25 p.m. after he and his father were at Buffalo Wild Wings in Indianapolis watching a football game with their family and friends.

Sabrina Canfield, Wyatt Carrender’s girlfriend, was at the restaurant and said David Carrender consumed about 10 Blue Moon beers and several shots of whiskey, according to a statement she gave police. Wyatt Carrender was reportedly the designated driver.

After the game ended, the father wanted to go on to another bar to watch more football, while the son wanted to look at cars for sale and then go home. Downey said an argument broke out between them as they drove back to their home in Martinsville, Ind.

Once home, the fight escalated. According to the police report, the pair fought in the stairway, and Wyatt Carrender head-butted his father, sending him crashing down the stairs.

David Carrender’s girlfriend, Cynthia Lloyd, was downstairs baking cookies while the two argued upstairs.

David and Wyatt Carrender then went to their bedrooms. David Carrender retrieved a .40 caliber handgun from his room and went into his son’s room, where Wyatt Carrender sat on his bed with his pregnant girlfriend, Canfield, according to the report.
 
Wyatt Carrender stood and started moving toward his father, and David Carrender proceeded to shoot his son five or six times in the chest, arm and pelvis, according to the police report.

In her interview with police, Canfield stated that David Carrender said just before firing the first shot, “I always knew I was going to have to do something like this.”

Canfield ran downstairs to tell Lloyd what had happened, and Lloyd called 911.

Wyatt Carrender was found dead at the scene.

Downey said authorities had responded to several domestic disputes at the house prior to this incident, and Lloyd said in her interview with police it wasn’t uncommon for David Carrender to become drunk and aggressive.

During his interview with police at the station, David Carrender reportedly began crying, saying he “had killed the thing that he loved most in the world,” according to the police report.

Follow reporter Hannah Smith on Twitter @hannsmit.