FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---There was a time when the Kizers and the Maxwells were friends. Family friends.
The downfall of that relationship seems to be at the heart of a cruel loss inflicted on the Maxwell family.
Their son, Jathen Maxwell, died at the hands of Cameron “Cam” Kizer, Jr., according to a probable cause affidavit written by homicide detective Nicholas Lichtsinn.
On July 25 of last year, just past midnight, officers from the Fort Wayne Police Department found the the 20-year-old suffering from several gunshot wounds at his home in the 3900 block of Warsaw Street. He died shortly after at a local hospital.
Kizer, Jr., 19, the accused killer, was furious that Jathen, a slight, thin young man by the looks of a photo sent to The Probable Cause, had “sucker punched” him at the Three Rivers Festival and Kizer couldn’t let it go, court documents explained.
Turned out Kizer had been threatening Maxwell “for a while.” But after the reported sucker punch, Kizer plotted obtaining 50 9 mm bullets and hunted for a vehicle, convincing an associate, P.B., to arrange to have someone steal a car to get to Jathen’s home.
Kizer implicated a female friend by asking her to help set up the shooting and he admitted to detectives that that was his goal.
There are incriminating texts between the two of them, but she denied that kind of involvement, even though she said that she could see why the detective got that impression, court documents said.
The texts are cold.
“My birthday is coming up lmk (let me know) if you need anything else,” she says, after she (allegedly) sets it up.
“Rayray,” Kizer responds. She declines to set up Rayray, a rival gang member,” by texting “some else”
Then, Kizer texts “Jathen.” “Bet,” she texts in agreement. It reads like a death sentence.
Two days later, on July 21, Kizer is on his Instagram talking to someone about stealing a car for him, only he’s picky. He doesn’t want a car that you have to push to start, court documents said.
To read the texts, you have to understand that a car is a “whip” and “slide” means come by. The car is a 2017 silver Honda stolen from the Raven’s Cove addition at the corner of Cook and Huguenard roads. At least that’s what the car thief tells Kizer.
Kizer gets pushy with the friend who reassures him that “lil bro grab strike rn,” which translates to someone is stealing it right now.
During the investigation, police tracked Kizer and his associates through many texts and Instagram posts as the plot unwound.
They found that less than an hour after the shooting, the female friend posted a video of the stolen Honda driving south at Hanna Street and Rudisill Boulevard, boldly recording the crime scene from the car window.
Within hours, Kizer was already rapping about the shooting. “I gotta finish the beef they started. You get a low on bro then call me.”
If only it weren’t so.
Immediately after the homicide, Thrusthard_clk, Kizer’s handle on Instagram, brashly posts “head shot,” telling the world the bullet that killed his childhood friend was a shot to the head, court documents said.
On that brand new rap that “dropped,” Kizer brags about killing people while waving around firearms. His accomplice, noted in court docs as “Witness 3,” also appears in the rap video. He is named as a “potential suspect.”
There’s enough detail in this probable cause to write a novella. It has names, text messages, and the crafty operation of the crime.
According to the Indiana Department of Correction, Kizer is serving time for a Felony 6 battery at Westville Correctional Facility, an Indiana prison not for the faint-hearted. His out date is in October, but likely he will be transferred to the Allen County Jail to await his murder trial.
He’ll have to get in line. There are more than 60 people right now sitting at the jail
on that charge and the courts are congested.
Fort Wayne homicide doesn’t “play” when it comes to taking a life and right now, the clearance rate, is at 100%. Another charge dropped this week in the March 20 Pennsylvania Street homicide. A 16-year-old.
Can you rap from inside a prison?