MARTINSVILLE — Last Wednesday morning, as commuters were still making their way to work, nine people stood on the corner of Main Street next to Morgan County’s judicial campus, holding signs that would make anyone stop in their tracks.
“Blood is on you,” one sign read. “My mom was murdered because of you,” read another.
Out on the corner were some of the family of Crystal Scotten, a former Morgan County resident who was found murdered in Georgia earlier this month.
Police believe she was killed by Ryan Ebler, a Martinsville resident who authorities say allegedly set Scotten’s house on fire after killing her. Ebler himself died just hours later in a fiery crash on I-64 in Kentucky during a high-speed chase with police.
While the protesters are certainly angry with Ebler, they didn’t show up on the courthouse square to protest him. They were there because they believe those who work inside the building failed both Scotten, and them.
Ebler wasn’t supposed to be in Georgia, or anywhere else outside of Indiana. The alleged killer was supposed to be in Morgan County, as he awaited trial, charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, a level 4 felony. The charge stemmed from an August 2024 incident, when Ebler ran a stop sign in Morgan County and was pulled over and searched.
Ebler’s jury trial was scheduled for Dec. 10, 2024, and in the meantime, Superior Court Judge Dakota VanLeeuwen granted him pretrial release. But Ebler would never be tried for his alleged crime — his trial was postponed seven times throughout 2025, and he allegedly killed Scotten and then caused his own death all before he saw a courtroom.
For those outside the courthouse last week, including Scotten’s 14-year-old daughter, Alexa Baker, Scotten’s death was a failure of the justice system.
“My mom was murdered by a guy on pretrial release,” Baker said.
Baker was accompanied by her father, Jaryd, and other members of their family who did not wish to be interviewed. Nevertheless, as the Bakers were being interviewed, several of them voiced their rage with county officials.
The protesters were angry that Ebler’s trial took so long, and that he was able to walk free before the trial at all. They were furious that Ebler did not have to wear an ankle monitor, or that he wasn’t put on at least home detention. They all believed that the judge and Morgan County Prosecutor’s Office should have seen that Ebler was a danger to Scotten, and should have been locked up as a result.
“I’d like to see the judge step down, and I’d like to see the prosecutor step down,” Jaryd Baker said.
“This wasn’t just sad,” he added. “It was preventable.”
‘The system needs to change’
Sonnega and Deputy Prosecutor Trevor Johnson sat down with The Correspondent last week to discuss the protester’s concerns, and more broadly, what went wrong with the Ebler case. Sonnega spoke at length as the meeting began about some philosophical issues at the root of the issue.
“There’s a tension between the presumption of innocence and public safety,” Sonnega said. “We don’t just arrest people willy nilly. But there is a gap between probable cause and proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
This preceded his main point: The American justice system is slow. That’s partially by design, but is also the result of certain material circumstances.
Not everyone can be in jail, Sonnega explained. The resources for that don’t exist, and besides, under American law, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. One of the ways the system is relieved of the burden of jailing all the accused is through bail, but critics have long argued that being required to post bail discriminates against poor people and minorities.
Sonnega understands these criticisms, to a point. Rich people will always be able to afford bail, leaving those who can’t stuck behind bars while they wait for trial.
Bail critics have scored some legislative victories in recent years, and changes in the law paved the way for more people to be released without bail as long as they meet certain criteria, such as employment, for example. Those on pretrial release have to meet some conditions, like reporting to a corrections officer a predetermined number of times, and they aren’t allowed to leave the state.
Ebler fit the criteria for pretrial release, Sonnega said, and for a long time satisfied the conditions imposed on him. But after more than a year, he still hadn’t seen a trial.
Why did it take so long? Sonnega and Johnson listed a number of reasons.
First, they had to wait for the evidence. Police took fingerprints from the gun obtained at the scene of Ebler’s traffic violation, but getting those back from forensic labs can take six months or longer. The prosecutors said these labs are usually pretty backlogged, taking so long due to being underfunded.
But that’s only one side of the issue. Ebler’s trial was postponed seven times, sometimes at the request of Ebler’s public defender, but sometimes at the request of the prosecutor’s office. Defense attorneys, Sonnega said, usually have a high caseload, and judges are often inclined to grant them more time if they ask for it so their clients have well-prepared defenses.
For the prosecutors — and judges — the calendar becomes an issue. There are only so many criminal and civil cases that can be scheduled at a time, as manpower is limited.
But why couldn’t Ebler have been put in home detention? Or at the very least been made to wear an ankle monitor, which could have alerted authorities when he left the state for Georgia?
Sonnega said money gets in the way here, and he also raised some practical concerns.
Home detention would require human resources the county does not have, Sonnega said, and the same is true for ankle monitors, as employees would need to be monitoring Ebler’s movements 24/7.
Furthermore, Sonnega said, rural Morgan County renders some of the technology associated with ankle monitors moot. In remote places in the county, signal is lost, which puts authorities on high alert sometimes unnecessarily. Solving this issue would likely require a lot of money, too.
“If we can’t afford it, we can’t do it,” Sonnega said. “Ebler had the maximum supervision that Morgan County can provide.”
“I would have liked to have seen (Ebler) have to post bail,” Sonnega added. “I think it puts skin in the game for the accused. I have a rational consumer theory of criminal justice. On the other hand, the criminal mind isn’t always as rational as I would like to think.”
Constitutional amendment?
Much of what Sonnega said might discourage those — including himself — who would seek to prevent future Eblers, but the prosecutor did see a sign of hope coming from the Indiana General Assembly’s latest session.
Last week, the Indiana Senate approved legislation that would amend Indiana’s Constitution if approved by voters in November. If the House of Representatives approves the legislation later this year, voters will see the ballot initiative on election day.
The amendment would allow Indiana judges to deny bail for certain defendants deemed too “dangerous” for release. Currently, Indiana’s constitution only allows judges to deny bail in cases where the defendant is accused of murder or treason.
Given Ebler’s history, a judge might have denied him bail, as he was considered a serious violent felon. Of course, Ebler never had to post bail, which is something Sonnega would like to see changed.
Sonnega admits that most people on pretrial release do not do what Ebler did. Nevertheless, he said being required to post bail makes defendants take their cases more seriously.
“We are always trying to make this system better,” Sonnega said. “You just do the best you can with what you’ve got. A lot of people like to point fingers, but I just think the system needs to change.”
“We are not oblivious to the impact it has on the families,” he added.
