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Trials

A Boone County judge found Graham Bixler guilty but mentally ill of murdering his mother, Kristin Bixler.

WLFI and Current Publishing reported that Judge Lori Schein found Graham Murphy Bixler, 33, of Zionsville, guilty but mentally ill of murder after a bench trial on Oct. 6 and 7, 2026, in the April 2024 killing of his mother, Kristin Bixler. He had argued he was not responsible by reason of insanity. Sentencing is set for 2 p.m. Nov. 4.

By Crime Talk Network Staff Writer ·

A guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict is a finding of guilt. It is not an acquittal, and it is not a sentence. Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said the court rejected the insanity defense after three mental-health experts testified. In Indiana, a defendant found guilty but mentally ill is sentenced as a person found guilty, and treatment follows if he is sent to prison. The Nov. 4 hearing is when that sentence is imposed.

WLFI reported that Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Bixler knowingly or intentionally killed Kristin Bixler in April 2024. The trial was a contested bench trial, so Judge Schein decided the facts. Bixler asserted he was not responsible by reason of insanity. After the expert testimony, the court rejected that defense and entered guilty but mentally ill of murder. Current Publishing carried the same announcement and the same Nov. 4 sentencing.

WIBC reported that Zionsville officers were sent on the morning of April 8, 2024, to a home on West Old 106th Street for a welfare check and found Kristin Bixler's body south of the house. The station reported investigators described blunt-force and sharp-force injuries, and that handsaws, garden shears, and a shovel were nearby. WIBC also reported that Bixler had been charged in 2023 with domestic battery and resisting law enforcement after an accusation that he tried to kill his father, and that on April 7, 2024, he was taken to a stress center on an emergency detention order. He was later charged with murder and abuse of a corpse. Those earlier matters are history. They are not the verdict Judge Schein entered this month.

Eastwood said no verdict undoes the loss, and that the conviction is accountability for Kristin's death. A guilty-but-mentally-ill finding means the judge concluded he committed the murder and was mentally ill, and that the insanity defense did not succeed. The sentence is still ahead. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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