Joshua Alexander Farmer (Fishers Police Dept.) and Kaylah Ann Farmer (currentobituary.com)
A 32-year-old man in Indiana with a history of physically assaulting his wife and three children was arrested last week after he allegedly stalked and killed his former spouse, shooting her more than a dozen times when she stopped at a gas station pump. Joshua Alexander Farmer, who police say “completely emptied” his gun during the attack, was taken into custody and charged with murder, stalking while armed with a deadly weapon, criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, and unlawful carrying of a handgun in the fatal shooting of Kaylah Ann Farmer, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a press release from the Fishers Police Department, officers at about 5 p.m. on June 28 responded to a call regarding a shooting at the Speedway gas station located near 116th Street and Allisonville Road, which is about 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they located an adult female victim — later identified as Kaylah Ann Farmer — who appeared to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds while seated in a red Chrysler van. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
Her husband, Joshua Farmer, was quickly identified as a person of interest in Kaylah Ann Farmer’s death.
In a probable cause affidavit, police said they obtained surveillance footage from the gas station showing that Farmer pulled into the establishment shortly after his wife and “completely just unloaded [his gun] into her window,” Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR reported. A witness reportedly told investigators that they remembered hearing about “30 to 40 total shots” being fired during the attack.
Farmer was believed to be driving an orange or maroon-colored Kia Soul that belonged to someone else when he allegedly ambushed his ex-wife. Prior to the shooting, investigators said they believe Farmer spent the day following Kaylah Farmer before finally deciding to proceed with the alleged attack when she stopped for gas on her way home from work.
A subsequent autopsy revealed that Kaylah Farmer suffered “more than 15 gunshot wounds” throughout her body. An officer observing the procedure said that “over 25 bullet fragments were removed from Kaylah’s body,” per the reported affidavit.
The day after the shooting, detectives from multiple law enforcement agencies were conducting electronic surveillance in the area of the attack when one of them spotted “a pair of shoes behind a growth of shrubs and exited his vehicle,” the affidavit states. The detective said he approached the bush and “made eye contact with the subject and identified him as Joshua Farmer.” Farmer was ordered to the ground and taken into custody without incident.
When searching the Kia Soul, investigators reportedly said they recovered a 9 mm handgun under the front passenger seat which came back as a match for shell casings used in Kaylah Farmer’s murder, according to the affidavit obtained by the Indianapolis Star.
In court documents filed by prosecutors in Hamilton County Superior Court, prosecutors reportedly claimed it was common knowledge that Kaylah Farmer was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband and was known to wear excessive amounts of makeup to hide the bruises on her face neck from being punched and choked.
One day after he was arrested for murder, Farmer appeared before a judge on a swath of charges from May 2023 in which he allegedly attacked Kaylah Farmer. Court documents state that Farmer’s 11-year-old son told police that he heard his father “start choking Kaylah to the point he could hear her struggling to breathe.” The child allegedly said that he “could hear the accused punching” his mother on the staircase of their home “for some time.”
WTHR reported that the boy also told investigators that his father sat him and his mother in chairs facing each other. The child reportedly said that his father then took a firearm, held it to his mother’s head, and “asked mom to choose between herself or him.”
Farmer is charged with multiple counts of criminal confinement, intimidation using a deadly weapon, domestic battery, strangulation, pointing a firearm at another, and interference with reporting a crime in connection with the May incident.
He is currently being held without bond and is due back in court on Aug. 17 for a pretrial conference.
According to her online obituary, Kaylah Ann Farmer worked for IU Heath for the last eight years and had previously served in the U. S. Air Force.
“Her three children were her whole life,” the obituary states. “She absolutely loved them and enjoyed watching them play soccer.”
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