Chandron Clark pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder in the shooting that killed Jason Griffin and wounded Griffin’s girlfriend.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — An Indianapolis man has been sentenced to 85 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder and attempted murder in a shooting that killed 44-year-old Jason Griffin and wounded Griffin’s girlfriend as the couple slept inside her home, according to court records and local reporting.

The sentence closes the criminal case against Chandron Clark, 64, months after police were called to the 1700 block of Union Street on Nov. 15, 2025. Investigators said Clark lived with the surviving woman and entered her bedroom before opening fire on her and Griffin. The woman survived. Griffin was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Clark later admitted guilt to both charges without a negotiated plea agreement that reduced or dismissed them, according to reporting on the court proceedings.

The shooting began while Griffin and his girlfriend were asleep, according to the account she later gave investigators. She told police that Clark entered the room, smiled at her and pointed a gun before firing. Griffin awoke during the attack and was shot multiple times, authorities said. The survivor told investigators that Clark shot her once but appeared to focus primarily on Griffin. The account became a central part of the case built by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department detectives after officers responded to the near-south-side residence.

The woman also gave investigators important context about the relationship among the three people. She described Clark as being intensely interested in her and jealous of her relationship with Griffin, according to court documents cited in news reports. She also told investigators that Clark used methamphetamine. Those statements reflected the survivor’s account to police and were not presented as independent medical findings. Authorities did not establish in the reporting reviewed for this story that drug use alone explained the shooting, and no single motive described in the public accounts fully resolves why Clark opened fire that day.

Another person inside the house provided police with a separate account of what happened during the gunfire. The witness, identified in reports as one of Griffin’s relatives, said he heard the wounded couple calling for help. Court documents cited by news organizations described the victims as pleading during the attack. The witness told investigators that the shooter did not speak while the violence unfolded. That description, combined with the surviving woman’s account, gave detectives a picture of an attack carried out with little or no verbal confrontation immediately beforehand.

Police were dispatched to the Union Street home shortly before 12:30 p.m., according to later local reporting. Officers encountered Clark at the property and took him into custody. Griffin and his girlfriend were transported for medical treatment. Griffin died from his wounds, while the woman survived serious injuries. Investigators said Clark also claimed that he had intended to shoot himself after attacking the couple but that the firearm did not discharge as he expected. The available reporting does not indicate that Clark suffered a gunshot injury from that claimed attempt.

What Clark told detectives after his arrest added another layer to the investigation. Police said he made statements suggesting that the shooting was intended to be part of a murder-suicide. Court records cited in news coverage also attributed to him a statement that Griffin and the woman had to become “casualties” because they did not fit his vision of a “perfect society.” Those words came from investigators’ description of Clark’s post-arrest statements. They differed from the survivor’s explanation that she viewed jealousy over her new relationship as an important factor in the attack.

Clark eventually chose to resolve the case by pleading guilty to murder in Griffin’s death and attempted murder for shooting the woman. Reporting on the proceeding described the admission as an open plea, meaning Clark admitted the offenses without a plea agreement setting a guaranteed sentence or requiring prosecutors to dismiss one of the charges. That left sentencing to the court. The guilty pleas also meant prosecutors did not have to present the full case to a jury or ask the surviving woman and other witnesses to testify through a murder trial.

The court imposed an 85-year sentence. Indiana law provides lengthy prison terms for both murder and attempted murder, and Clark faced decades of incarceration on each offense. The sentence represented punishment for both Griffin’s death and the attack on the surviving woman rather than treating the episode solely as a homicide case. Because Clark pleaded guilty, the court did not have to decide whether prosecutors could prove his responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt at trial; his admissions resolved that question for purposes of the criminal case.

Griffin’s death was more than the central count in a charging document. Local reporting described him as a writer and published poet who was remembered by relatives as a devoted member of his family. He had a son, and nieces described him as someone who filled a father-like role in their lives. Those accounts offered a view of the 44-year-old beyond the police reports that documented how he died. His girlfriend, whose name has not been widely published in the reports reviewed for this story, survived an attack that unfolded in the room where the couple had been sleeping.

Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears characterized the shooting as senseless when his office announced the case’s resolution, according to local reporting. Prosecutors said the guilty plea provided accountability while avoiding a trial that would have required Griffin’s family and the surviving victim to revisit the attack in court. The plea did not erase the conflicting descriptions contained in the investigative record about what Clark believed or why he acted, but it eliminated any dispute in the criminal proceeding over whether he committed the murder and attempted murder.

Currently, Clark is now serving the 85-year sentence imposed after his guilty pleas. The court outcome ends the prosecution stemming from the Nov. 15, 2025, shooting, while the surviving woman and Griffin’s relatives remain the people most directly affected by an attack that began inside a shared Indianapolis home and left one man dead and another victim wounded.

Author note: Last updated September 28, 2026.