By DREW BLAIR
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
An Indiana man accused of murder in Alabama was captured last week driving the victim’s vehicle in Carmel, police say.
Blinks
Damon Blinks, 28, Greencastle, Ind., has been sitting in the Hamilton County Jail for the past week on a $1,000,000 bond. Blinks was arrested on Aug. 30 by Carmel police for a shooting in Huntsville, Ala.
The Huntsville Police Department accused Blinks of shooting Devin McDonald, 23, and then driving McDonald’s vehicle to Indiana. Blinks has been charged with murder in Alabama and resisting law enforcement in Indiana.
HPD said the shooting happened around 10:40 p.m. on Aug. 28, two days before Blinks was taken into custody. Officers in Huntsville were called to a parking lot the next morning in the 300 block of Quality Circle for a man found unresponsive, at which time McDonald was pronounced dead.
Investigators traveled from Alabama to speak with Blinks in the Hamilton County Jail. That is where they said he was formally charged with McDonald’s murder. HPD thanks police in Carmel “for their assistance with safely apprehending Blinks,” the department said in a statement.
According to online court records, Blinks has a criminal history that started at the age of 19. His criminal record includes convictions in Hendricks, Marion, and Madison counties in Indiana.
Search results on the Indiana Department of Correction database show Blinks served prison time on at least five different occasions.
Prior prosecutions have been for theft in July 2014, as well as two separate sentences handed down for carjacking in October 2014 and again in November 2015. According to online records, Blinks received a term of more than eight years in May 2017 for unlawful firearm possession by a serious felon, resisting law enforcement, and escape with the earliest possible release date posted as Sept. 1, 2022.
The Huntsville Police Department said Blinks would be extradited to Alabama to face the capital murder charge but did not say when.