A Lake County Magistrate denied a Gary man’s bid for post-conviction relief Thursday, who fatally killed a Gary police officer in 2014, court records show.
Carl Le’Ellis Blount, 36, was sentenced in 2017 to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to the 2014 murder of Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield, 47.
“Obviously, we are glad the appeal was denied,” Dawn Westerfield, his ex-wife, said Friday by phone. “He admitted to what he did. It will never bring Jeff back.”
Blount was “consistently dangerous” and needed to spend the rest of his life in prison, she added.
He can appeal the ruling.
Two hearings were held in August. He filed a petition for post-conviction relief, alleging there was “prosecutorial misconduct” in getting him to plead guilty. Blount originally faced the death penalty in Westerfield’s murder before agreeing to plead guilty.
He withdrew his petition for post-conviction relief in 2019, then revived it in 2023, this time representing himself. It got bounced briefly up to the Indiana Court of Appeals, before that court returned the case to Lake County.
On July 6, 2014, Gary police officers were looking for Blount after responding to a domestic disturbance with a former girlfriend “during which he was shot” in the 2300 block of McKinley Street, his plea agreement stated.
Blount eventually encountered Westerfield, who was in his squad car, on 26th Avenue between Van Buren Place and Van Buren Street.
Blount, “fearing that he would be arrested on an outstanding warrant out of Porter County, Indiana, intentionally shot Officer Westerfield,” the agreement states.
In his petition for post-conviction relief, Blount claimed that “the prosecutor threatened (Blount) that if he did not sign the plea agreement” in Westerfield’s murder that Blount “would have two separate murder charges attached with two additional death sentences filed against him,” the petition states.
As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to charge Blount in the fatal shootings of Daven James, 17, and Derrion Estes, 23.
James and Estes, who were each shot in the head, were found June 26, 2014, in an alley in the 1600 block of West 5th Avenue in Gary, court records state.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Bruno was assigned to the post-conviction relief case. It was held before Magistrate Kathleen Sullivan.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
