A Johnson County grand jury indicted Michael Jerome James in the 2006 killings of Chynna and Blake Dickus.

A grand jury indictment is an accusation the state may try to prove. It is not a guilty verdict. On Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, jurors returned a true bill against Michael Jerome James, 35, after about three weeks of testimony in the 2006 killings of Chynna Dickus and Blake Dickus. Franklin police took him into custody. WRTV reported on Monday, Oct. 5, that the indictment, once unsealed, also charges two murder counts alleged to have been committed during a burglary. Those counts are still charges.

Franklin Police Chief Kirby Cochran announced on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, that a grand jury had indicted Michael Jerome James, 35, in the murders of Blake and Chynna Dickus. In the department's release, Cochran said detectives had kept the file open for 20 years, pursued new leads, and used advances in forensic science, and that the indictment is a milestone, not the end of the work. He said the department would not discuss the evidence and would leave further questions to the prosecutor. WRTV reported police took James into custody after the indictment and identified him as a Franklin man. The New York Post reported he was arrested Friday at a home in Shelbyville. An arrest address is custody. It is not proof.

WRTV reported that family members found Chynna Dickus, 26, and her stepson Blake Dickus, 10, stabbed to death inside their Franklin home on July 24, 2006. The New York Post, citing the investigation, reported Sean Dickus found them after he came home from work, and that police have said Blake was also beaten and suffocated. Detective Sgt. John Borges told WRTV that investigators learned nearly 11 years ago that the deaths were tied to five daytime burglaries in June and July 2006 within about half a mile of the Dickus home on Aberdeen Drive, including one the same day on the same street. He said the intruder cut window screens in a T-pattern and went through refrigerators. That is a detective's theory of how the cases connect. It is not a jury finding, and the indictment does not adopt it as a fact until a trial does.

Johnson County Prosecutor Lance D. Hamner said the grand jury heard evidence for about three weeks and returned the indictment, and that he would not describe the proof, the New York Post reported. He said James, who would have been 14 at the time, will be tried as an adult, and that detectives are not looking for another suspect or a co-conspirator. WRTV reported Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, that the indictment has been unsealed and that it adds two murder counts alleged to have been committed while committing or attempting to commit burglary, on top of the two murder counts announced Friday. The same station reported that on Friday night the case had not yet appeared in online court records, and that an initial hearing is set for Johnson Circuit Court. A reward that the prosecutor's office raised on Sept. 25, from $25,000 to $100,000, was an ask for information. It was not a charge. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.