The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) has arrested Zachary Arnold, 41, and they say he confessed to murd£ring his 5-year-old daughter Zara Arnold on May 19, per court documents.
Arnold, 41, initially claimed that his daughter had fallen down the stairs when he called 911 to report she was not breathing that morning, according to the IMPD.
He then changed his story while being questioned by detectives with the IMPD, allegedly telling them that he strangled his daughter after having an argument with his girlfriend.
Detectives with the IMPD then spoke with Arnold’s girlfriend who confirmed that the two were fighting, and then allegedly said that she saw Zara being choked by her father.
The Indy Star and News8, citing court documents, report that Arnold sent his girlfriend “photos of Zara foaming at the mouth,” “called her on FaceTime while choking the girl” and “said to call 911 because he was going to hurt the little girl.”
The girlfriend claims that she told him to stop but “thought he was just playing,” according to the court documents obtained by the Star and WTHR.
At no point did the girlfriend contact authorities or tell anyone about the photo, what she saw on FaceTime or the threat Arnold allegedly made about his daughter, according to the documents.
The girlfriend later told police that she did not call 911 because she was afraid of Arnold.
The documents also revealed that the girlfriend had videos on her phone of the 5-year-old girl being swung around with a noose by her father, according to court documents.
The morning of May 19, first responders found Zara Arnold cold, stiff and covered in bruises at her father’s house in the 200 block of North Lasalle Street.
Zachary Arnold, 41, was arrested on charges of murd£r and neglect of a dependent in connection with the little girl’s de@th.
In an interview, Arnold admitted that he’d strangled her the night before after becoming enraged during an argument with his girlfriend, Andrea Lopez-Figueroa.
Lopez-Figueroa told police she’d left the home on May 18. Arnold wanted her to stay over that night to watch Zara, who was returning from a weekend at a family friend’s house, but Lopez-Figueroa wanted to go home. She told him she “wanted to be single and needed to think,” according to investigators.
That was the start of a prolonged argument that Arnold blamed for the extended attack on his daughter in a police interview.
“It kept amping up and Zara was crying,” detectives wrote.
Over several hours, Lopez-Figueroa watched on FaceTime calls as Arnold assaulted his daughter, police wrote.
She told him to stop when he held Zara down by her legs and choked her. She told him to stop when he picked Zara up by her throat. She told him to stop when he pulled the little girl by her hair. At no point did she call 911. Instead, she took screenshots of the assault.
She told investigators she didn’t call for help because she was afraid of Arnold, even though Arnold had ordered her to call for help because he was going to k!ll Zara.
Lopez-Figueroa thought they were “playing” at the time, according to investigators.
She estimated that Arnold ch0ked his daughter more than 10 times throughout their argument.
In the last call of the night, Lopez-Figueroa said she saw Zara motionless and bloodied.
“It looked like she was breathing,” she told investigators, according to court documents. At some point after that, she went to sleep.
When Arnold called Lopez-Figueroa back in the morning, he was doing compressions on Zara and pacing back and forth.
At 11:07 a.m., as first responders examined the girl’s lifeless body, Arnold texted Lopez-Figueroa that the little girl had d!ed.
She was soon picked up by police for questioning.
A forensic search of Lopez-Figueroa’s phone corroborated her account of repeated FaceTime calls, texts and social media messages throughout May 18 and 19.
Multiple videos from Lopez-Figueroa’s phone, some recorded as early as April 10, showed Arnold str@ngling Zara.
One of the videos from the night of May 18 shows Arnold swinging Zara around by a noose. He throws the girl over his shoulder and hangs her behind his back.
“Zara appears to still be alive in all of these videos,” detectives wrote.
A warrant has been issued for Lopez-Figueroa’s arrest on charges of assisting a criminal and failure to make a report.
Arnold’s initial hearing was early May 22. He was not given bond. Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said he will seek life without parole.
Arnold had previously been charged with r@pe in 2020, but managed to get that charge dismissed in a plea deal with prosecutors, according to a sentencing order.
He had also been charged with violating protective orders filed by Zara’s mother on at least three occasions, per the sentencing order. It shows that he entered a guilty plea to an invasion of privacy charge just days before his daughter’s death.
The judge in that case sentenced Arnold to 360 days in county jail but then suspended all 360 days, allowing him to return home.
That was on May 12, a week before Zara’s death.
On Wednesday, May 21, a spokesperson for the Marion County Coroner’s Office told PEOPLE that Zara’s cause of de@th was multiple blunt force injuries and her manner of de@th was homicide.
Arnold is now being held at the Adult Detention Center and is facing charges of murd£r and neglect of a dependent. The IMPD says more charges could be filed, as the investigation is ongoing.
The probable cause affidavit also notes that Arnold blames his actions on his girlfriend, telling detectives that “she did this” to him and her actions are “making him out to be a monster.”
