A Lake Station teen’s unsolved murder case was helped after the alleged shooter confessed in January 2025 to a cellmate, records show.
Keshaun Perkins, 23, of Lake Station, is charged with two counts of murder and one count of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury.
His brother, Keontay Perkins, 22, of Lake Station, an alleged accomplice, is charged with one count each of murder and robbery resulting in bodily injury.
Keshaun’s girlfriend Mariana Puentez, 28, of East Chicago, is charged with two counts of assisting a criminal, one count of obstruction of justice and misdemeanor false informing.
All are in custody, held without bail.
Keshaun admitted to the witness he didn’t think Demetrius Harbor would be “willing to die” over a gun during the planned robbery, an affidavit states.
“(He) wasn’t trying to give me his gun and his phone, so I shot him…and pushed him out of the car,” Perkins told the witness, according to court records. “(He) was trying to play me like I’m a (fool).”
Keontay Perkins tried to grab Harbour’s gun from him. Harbour resisted just before Keshaun Perkins shot him, charges state.
Lake Station Police responded around 7:30 p.m. Aug. 20, 2022, to an alley behind the 2700 block of Gibson Street.
There, they found the victim, Harbour, 17, of Lake Station, fatally shot once in the torso from a distance. He was lying on his back. His death was ruled a homicide.
The teen’s two cellphones were nearby. He was missing a Nike Air One sneaker.
After a search warrant on Aug. 23, 2022, police found traces of Harbour’s blood on a seatbelt, a Ruger 9-mm gun and bullet casing in the red Explorer Perkins drove on the day of the murder.
Harbour’s other 9-mm Smith & Wesson gun was missing. Police learned Perkins had a “history of robbing people” of guns, the affidavit states.
Harbour started fighting with the Keontay in the backseat. Perkins stopped the vehicle and shot him around 6:20 p.m., charges allege.
Puentez cleaned the SUV she let Perkins borrow afterwards. She denied it to police, saying there wasn’t any blood there. They found her account not credible.
Perkins’ cellphone was later seized after a traffic stop.
“Demetrius’s AirPods” briefly linked via Bluetooth to Perkins’ cell.
“I’m finna be there soon. I’m (trying) to handle something,” Perkins texted Puentez, just before the slaying, later adding, “I’m literally trying to get this pipe (gun) real quick.”
“(Don’t) make that car hot either,” she later responds in the conversation.
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“(Just) by the way my car sounds, I can tell you were doing dumb (stuff) in it,” she later texts.
Perkins later refused to talk to police.
Lake Station Police opened a cold case unit last year to formally reexamine a handful of cases, including Harbour’s death.