A jury convicted a Gary man Friday of killing his ex-girlfriend and wounding her new boyfriend near a Merrillville Menards parking lot in June 2023.
Dejuan McIntyre, 45, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and two gun enhancements. The jury deliberated for a few hours.
His sentencing is May 6.
After the verdict, victim Ashley Bitikofer’s sister Jennifer Hawkins was “slightly at peace,” she said. “Unfortunately, in circumstances like this, there is no justice. Her life ended that day.”
“There was justice to an extent,” she added. “He can’t hurt anybody else.”
Merrillville Police were called to the big box store’s parking lot, 6300 Mississippi St., at 11:13 p.m. June 8, 2023, after the car crashed into the store’s east fence.
Bitikofer was found shot dead. Her boyfriend Mike Lehman was wounded and airlifted to a Chicago hospital. He later testified the car was shot at, causing the crash, before McIntyre shot them both.
Earlier that night, the couple, who worked together at Indiana Sugars in Gary, had spent a second night at a Super 8 motel. McIntyre allegedly confronted them there, which grew into a car chase where he ambushed and shot them.
McIntyre denied the accusations and pleaded not guilty.
In closing arguments Friday, Deputy Prosecutor Arturo Balcazar told jurors the attack “was not a mistake.”
Bitikofer was wounded multiple times, including two shots to the head, one at close range, he said. Lehman was left “on the verge of death.”
Various bits of evidence put McIntyre at the Super 8 motel where he confronted the new couple, then followed them to the area where they were shot, he argued. She texted a friend earlier that night that McIntyre had confronted them.
Bitikofer, herself, was on a 911 call “begging for her life” before two more shots were fired, he said. She was talking to someone she knew, he said.
Police later recovered a white shirt, similar to one McIntyre wore on camera at his dollar store job that day, in a garbage can at a relative’s house. The gun was never recovered.
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Ammunition found at the home matched the crime scene. Afterwards, McIntyre tried to Google information on the killings and appeared to zoom in on where Bitikofer’s body was found, Balcazar said.
“He knows exactly what he just did,” he argued.
Two men who testified earlier this week gave inconsistent descriptions of the shooter, with one describing him as Black and the other as white or Latino.
When McIntyre talked to police, he was trying to figure out what they knew, Balcazar said.
Defense lawyer Michael Lambert argued the case had a “million moving parts,” that some were scattered around, or didn’t fit together.
The facts didn’t “fit their narrative,” he said.
The two witnesses described completely different men, he said.
At the scene, there was an open question as to who was shot first. Lehman said no one was shot in the car, yet there was blood found on the seat.
Lehman testified he didn’t feel threatened at the motel.
According to testimony, McIntyre paid for the hotel. Lehman testified he assumed Bitikofer’s sister paid the bill. He tried to pay for another night, but doesn’t know if his card ever got charged.
“You go into this hotel room, where your girlfriend is with another guy, you’re going to pop off right there,” Lambert said, of his client’s reaction, meaning, if anywhere, McIntyre would have attacked him there.
It was “odd” that Lehman would try to pay for another night at 7 p.m.
Lehman admitted on the witness stand under questioning that the pair drank, smoked marijuana and used some cocaine. He also took Adderall and Vicodin, Lambert noted.
The lawyer said he believed Lehman wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and may have hit his head on the windshield during the crash into the fence.
With “all the drugs,” he was seeing a “circle of stars,” he said on impact.
How Bitikofer and Lehman were found away from each other wasn’t fully explained, Lambert argued.
According to the charging affidavit, Bitikofer’s relative said she and McIntyre had a “tumultuous” relationship and had broken up a few months earlier. He showed up “unannounced” on Mother’s Day at Bitikofer’s mother’s house, trying to “reconcile,” the relative said.
If Bitikofer and McIntyre’s relationship was so “toxic,” why did he pay for a hotel room, pay for a pizza and get her flowers for Mother’s Day, Lambert said. It only showed they broke up and “remained friends.”
What may have happened was that there was a “coke (cocaine) party going on in a room under his name,” Lambert said.
Prosecutors showed four “horrible texts” that were a piece in the overall picture, he said.
There was no blood found on the white T-shirt, which shouldn’t have happened if she was shot at close range, the lawyer argued. There should have been blood on his shirt and pants.
“You don’t get away from that,” he told the jury.
He argued investigators “already made up their mind” when they learned McIntyre was a jaded ex-boyfriend. McIntyre probably read news articles on the shooting because “somebody called him” and he knew the people involved, Lambert said.
Before the hearing, Hawkins said her sister was “full of life” and always “dancing” and “singing.”
One time, during the winter, she was dancing in the car with limbs hanging out the sunroof and window. Outside, near a gas station, she slipped and fell near the gas station. She was on the ground “cracking up, laughing,” Hawkins recalled.
Her sister was a stickler for tradition as their families spent every Fourth of July and Halloween together. Other family noted her love for tacos and energy drinks.
“If she cared about you, she didn’t just care, she loved you,” Hawkins said.
A few years before meeting McIntyre, Bitikofer lost custody of her two sons. It left her “completely broken” and “devastated,” Hawkins said.
Bitikofer met McIntyre through a cousin who was in prison with him. Hawkins thought he was “arrogant” and “self-centered.”
She never saw any abuse, but believed her sister hid it. Her sister argued with him over the phone when she was at her house. McIntyre wasn’t allowed inside her house, Hawkins said. Something about him “felt off.”
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She only learned his name when Bitikofer said it as she was arguing on the phone with McIntyre. He tried to make up for toxic behavior with gifts, and sometimes her sister found it difficult to refuse.
Hawkins said she wanted a “double guilty” verdict, also for Lehman. She only met him after the shooting. His testimony was “very brave” and “spot on” to what he told her then.
Debra Bitikofer, her mother, said she had a “joy for life.”
“The first shot wasn’t good enough,” she said, calling her daughter’s death “overkill.”
A man with the same name and birth date was sentenced to 30 years in 2009 for an Indianapolis-area burglary conviction, records show. He was released in 2022.