Attorneys for Logan Owsley have filed a request to reopen a federal court case alleging civil obstruction of justice against Bartholomew County officials in the death of Cary Owsley.
The federal lawsuit, filed in Indianapolis in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, was placed on hold while probate issues involving Logan Owsley’s standing as administrator of the estate of his late father, Cary Owsley, who was found dead from a gunshot wound April 7, 2013, in his home in Zephyr Village outside of Columbus. Then-Bartholomew County Coroner Larry Fisher, one of eight defendants in the case, ruled Cary Owsley’s death a suicide.
The federal lawsuit was filed April 7, 2015, by Logan Owsley in U.S. District Court against then-Bartholomew County Sheriff Mark Gorbett, Fisher and current and former sheriff’s deputies E. DeWayne Janes Sr., Dean A. Johnson, Christie L. Nunemaker, Brent E. Worman, William R. Kinman Jr. and Christopher Roberts.
In the most recent court filing to reopen the federal lawsuit, attorneys allege that the Bartholomew County officials, in conspiracy with others, intentionally destroyed and manipulated key pieces of evidence in Cary Owsley’s shooting five years ago and engaged in other egregious misconduct to cover up the true circumstances and the cause of the death, according to the petition.
“In so doing, defendants engaged in an illegal conspiracy, obstructed justice, denied access to the courts and inflicted emotional distress, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and Indiana Law,” the petition states.
The petition also alleges that among the suspects were Cary’s wife, Lisa Owsley — “who was at the Owsley home when Cary was shot and with whom Cary had been having marital problems and a dispute over a large sum of money” — and her two adult sons, Ernest DeWayne Janes Jr. and Joshua Janes, whose father is Lisa Owsley’s ex-husband, E. DeWayne Janes Sr., a defendant in the lawsuit.
The attorney for Lisa Owsley and her sons, Shelbyville attorney Mark McNeely, said they had no comment about the allegations in the petition.
While Logan Owsley is seeking to reopen the case, his attorneys acknowledge in the petition that attorneys for the defendants will file a new motion seeking to dismiss the federal case, according to the court documents.
