Indiana police say a canine could have been used to hide a homicide weapon, however are they flawed?

“Willow,” a black and white feminine pit bull combine beloved by her house owners, did not appear destined to develop into a key determine in a homicide investigation. However that is precisely what occurred. It was Aug. 12, 2023, when the canine turned recognized to legislation enforcement in New Haven, Indiana.

That morning, police would hear about Willow, and the way she was a protecting guard canine. However they would not meet her. And that is one in all many locations the place this story will get fascinating as correspondent Peter Van Sant studies in “A Dying within the Stairwell,” an all-new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.

Willow belonged to Kevin and Alison Davis, a married couple. Steve Krause, Alison Davis’ father, tells Van Sant how a lot Kevin and Alison beloved one another, calling one another “babe.” Alison Davis’ greatest buddy, Kasey Klemm, says they have been a contented couple who danced collectively within the kitchen. Krause explains, “They’d no kids, so the canine was … like a baby” to them. Their buddy, Jason Younger, says that Willow was “an enormous barker and form of intimidating at first,” however that in “two minutes the canine would not care about you anymore.”

The night time Kevin Davis sustained his accidents, he and Alison Davis had been out collectively at an area tavern. Buddies and the tavern employees say it was a typical night time and that they appeared joyful once they headed house round 1 a.m. Alison Davis would later inform police that once they did get house, she and Kevin had an argument, so she went to sleep on a sofa downstairs. Kevin Davis headed to their upstairs bed room – the place Willow was too. Alison Davis says she was woke up by a loud noise. She says she discovered Kevin Davis unresponsive, face down, in a big pool of blood. Alison Davis would inform a 911 operator and first responders that Kevin Davis had fallen down the steps.

After emergency responders rushed Kevin Davis to the hospital, Det. James Krueger would query Alison Davis. She would signal paperwork, giving consent to police to enter and search the house. However Alison Davis warned the detective about Willow: “She’s a guard canine. I do not know if she’d do something, and I do not need something to occur to her,” stated Alison Davis.

Krueger instructed her he would not go in that room. He says when he went upstairs, “I may hear the canine strolling round in there … So I cracked the door open … I received the tooth, and the growls and all the things. And there was no approach that canine was letting me in that room.” Krueger regarded round the remainder of the home. He felt “all the things checked out” and that Alison Davis’ story was true — this was a tragic, deadly fall.

Kevin Davis had large traumatic accidents to his head. He wouldn’t survive one other day. Household and mates say Alison Davis was devastated by the lack of the husband she beloved. However police got here to suppose in a different way. 4 months later, Indiana authorities would cost Alison Davis with homicide. Detective Krueger concluded, “This can be a spouse that misplaced it and beat her husband to demise.” Authorities say she used an improvised weapon, like an train weight, maybe a baseball bat. However no weapon was ever discovered.

After 17 months of incarceration, Alison Davis — who has at all times maintained her innocence — would go on trial for homicide. In simply six hours, the jury would come to its verdict. Alison Davis just isn’t responsible.

Krueger, who had been promoted to chief of police, believes the decision might need been completely different if solely he had gotten into Willow’s room that August morning. “I feel that canine could have been deliberately put in that room to maintain me out,” Krueger tells Van Sant. Krueger provides, there may have been “the blunt power object … in that room … one thing in that room that will’ve helped with the case.”

After the trial, a juror instructed Van Sant that the prosecution’s case “had numerous holes.” And that there have been sturdy the explanation why the jury had voted to acquit Alison Davis. Nonetheless, Police Chief Krueger says he’ll at all times marvel if there may have been a homicide weapon in Willow’s room.

“There is not any proof … It is unbelievable. Such injustice,” says Krause. “That is simply strictly an accident.”

Alison Davis is free, now residing along with her mom and father. She’s attempting to place her life again collectively, with out Kevin, the person her dad says at all times referred to as her “babe.” And by her facet, as she at all times has been, is Willow.