North Carolina man arraigned on murder charge 3 years after southern Indiana homicide

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- A North Carolina man faced a judge Wednesday three years after being charged with a murder in Jeffersonville.

Christopher Tandy, 44, is charged with the murder of 29-year-old Roderick Wallace, who was found shot to death in a yard on Wildwood Drive in the Oak Park neighborhood in July 2021. Homicide detectives said Wallace, a Wisconsin man living in Clarksville, was murdered in Jeffersonville and his body was dumped in a quiet neighborhood.

Jeffersonville Police Chief Kenny Kavanaugh reassured the community at the time that it is safe after what he called an isolated situation potentially tied to drugs. Amy Barber lives nearby and remembers the day the body was discovered.

"It was kind of alarming, just wondering where the body came from," Barber said Wednesday. "Was it somebody in the neighborhood?"

Wallace's body was first noticed by a person driving on Wildwood Drive about 6:45 a.m. July 23, 2021. The person called police saying a man was face down on the ground. According to the probable cause affidavit, Wallace was shot six times in the head. Police believe he was shot in a parking lot of a nearby Jeffersonville apartment complex. The investigation led police to Louisville, where Wallace's blood-stained car was found off Beech Street. Court documents state detectives believed Wallace had several guns and recently came into possession of 2 pounds of marijuana, none of which has been recovered.

"The incident itself was disconcerting for the citizens of that neighborhood because they simply discovered that there was the dead victim laying there," Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said Friday.

Court records show police identified Tandy as the suspect in the shooting after searching the victim's phone records. Shortly thereafter, Jeffersonville Police communicated with the Asheville Police Department when it determined Tandy may be in the area.

However, Tandy has remained in custody for three years in North Carolina, where he pleaded guilty last year to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury as well as assault inflicting serious injury on a detention employee for attacking a detention center employee with a metal tray while in custody.

Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams said in August 2023 that Jeffersonville prosecutors were notified of Tandy's plea, clearing the way for him to be extradited to Indiana to face the 2021 murder charge.

"We were informed that he was in custody in North Carolina, and he was transported here pursuant to the interstate agreement on detainers," Mull said Wednesday. "And so just this week, he was brought to Clark County on that outstanding warrant."

Judge Vicki Carmichael appointed Tandy a public defender Wednesday. He's being held without bond in the Clark County Detention Center, charged with murder, possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and auto theft.

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