Emanuel Carter pleaded guilty after prosecutors said he opened fire as Bauman’s younger brother tried to escape an armed robbery.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN — A judge sentenced 17-year-old Emanuel Carter to 45 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murdering Makayla Bauman, an 18-year-old passenger who was shot during an attempted robbery connected to a marijuana sale in September 2024.

The July 1 sentence resolved the murder prosecution without a trial nearly two years after Bauman was fatally wounded. Carter was 15 when the shooting occurred and was later moved from juvenile court into the adult criminal system. Under the plea agreement accepted by the judge, prosecutors dismissed separate counts of robbery and dangerous possession of a firearm by a child. Carter made a brief statement in court and apologized for what happened, according to local reporting from the sentencing hearing.

The punishment was the sentence negotiated by prosecutors and Carter’s defense before the hearing. Indiana law generally sets a fixed term of 45 to 65 years for murder, with 55 years identified as the advisory sentence. Carter’s 45-year term therefore falls at the bottom of the statutory range for the offense. Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said transferring the case to adult court was necessary because of the seriousness of the killing, even though Carter was only 15 at the time.

“The defendant was just 15 years old when he took a life, and today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of his actions,” Mears said in a statement released after the hearing. He said no sentence could restore what Bauman’s family had lost but described the punishment as a measure of accountability. The prosecutor’s statement focused on Carter’s age without treating it as a reason to reduce the gravity of the crime. The plea spared the state and Bauman’s family from preparing for a murder trial, while assuring a sentence measured in decades.

The shooting happened shortly after 9 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2024. Investigators said Bauman accompanied her younger brother to an apartment complex for a planned sale of one ounce of marijuana for $140. Her brother had arranged the transaction with a person he knew by a nickname, later identified by police as Carter. The brother and Carter knew each other as classmates at Beech Grove High School, according to the probable cause affidavit described by news organizations that reviewed the court record.

Instead of completing the sale, investigators said, Carter and another armed person approached the vehicle. Bauman’s brother told detectives that guns were pointed at him and that one of the two demanded everything he had and asked whether he wanted to die. The brother put the vehicle in reverse in an effort to get away. Gunfire followed, with shots directed toward the passenger side where Bauman was sitting. Authorities attributed the fatal shot to Carter in the murder case that ended with his guilty plea.

Bauman told her brother that she believed she had been shot. Her brother began driving away and tried to reach medical help, but he became concerned that his sister was losing consciousness. He stopped in the 5900 block of Riva Ridge Drive, near South Arlington Avenue and Interstate 465 on the southeast side of Indianapolis. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers and Beech Grove officers responding to a report of a person shot found the siblings there. Her brother was trying to help her when police arrived.

Emergency personnel took Bauman to a hospital in critical condition, but she died from her injury. Court records cited in local reports said an autopsy found that a bullet entered the right side of her chest and lodged in her left shoulder. The description established that she had been struck once, even though investigators recovered evidence of several shots. Police found five shell casings in two calibers, 9 mm and 10 mm, which led detectives to conclude that two firearms had been discharged during the encounter.

The two calibers supported the brother’s statement that two armed people had approached the car and fired as he tried to leave. He identified Carter but said he was not certain about the identity of the second person. Police later identified the other person as Carter’s brother, according to reports based on the affidavit. Publicly available reporting has not established whether that brother was charged in connection with Bauman’s death. Carter was arrested the day after the shooting as investigators gathered witness statements and compared them with the physical evidence.

Carter initially offered detectives a different account. He reportedly said that he and his brother were the people being robbed and claimed someone inside the vehicle had displayed a weapon. Investigators said they found no evidence that Bauman or her brother had been armed. That conclusion was important because it undercut Carter’s reported explanation for why gunfire began. The account from Bauman’s brother, the shell casings and statements obtained from another witness instead led police and prosecutors to describe the encounter as a planned robbery of the marijuana seller.

Another witness told investigators that Carter had spoken beforehand about robbing a white boy of marijuana, according to reports describing the probable cause affidavit. That statement, if credited, placed the idea of a robbery before the meeting and conflicted with Carter’s claim that he faced an unexpected threat from the vehicle. Prosecutors originally charged Carter with murder, robbery and unlawful firearm possession by a child. The robbery and firearm counts were later dismissed as part of the agreement requiring his guilty plea to murder and the 45-year sentence.

The plea changed the legal posture of the case. Before pleading guilty, Carter was accused of the offenses and would have been entitled to require prosecutors to prove the charges at trial. His admission to murder removed the need for a jury to decide whether the state had met that burden. It also narrowed the sentencing decision because the prison term had been negotiated in advance. The judge’s acceptance of the agreement made the 45-year term the final judgment in the murder prosecution, subject to the ordinary rights and procedures available after conviction.

Carter’s age remained one of the most unusual features of the case. He was still a high school-age child when Bauman was killed, but the case was handled in adult court after a waiver process. Indiana law allows young defendants accused of certain serious offenses to face adult criminal penalties. The outcome means that conduct committed at 15 will shape most of Carter’s adult life. His exact release date cannot be determined from the sentence alone because time already spent in custody, conduct credit and any program-related credit must be calculated under correctional rules.

The dismissal of the two additional charges does not mean the state withdrew its account of the attempted robbery. Rather, the agreement resolved the entire case through one murder conviction and one fixed sentence. Plea agreements commonly require prosecutors to give up other counts in exchange for a guilty plea and an agreed punishment. Here, the murder conviction carried by far the most serious consequence, and the 45-year term matched the minimum fixed sentence authorized by Indiana’s murder statute.

Bauman was born Oct. 23, 2005, in Indianapolis to Scott and Jennifer Bauman. Her obituary described her as vibrant, outgoing and compassionate, with a personality that brought energy to the people around her. It said she enjoyed shopping and spending time with friends and was remembered for her smile, intelligence and joyful nature. She was survived by her parents, her brother, Kaden Bauman, her grandfathers and an extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

Her funeral was held in Indianapolis in October 2024, a little more than a week after the shooting. The family suggested memorial contributions to Riley Children’s Hospital. Those details show the part of the case that a prison term cannot address: Bauman’s relatives lost an 18-year-old daughter, sister and family member during what had begun as a short drive with her younger brother. The criminal prosecution determined Carter’s responsibility and punishment, but it could not reverse the event that brought the family into court.

Authorities have not publicly clarified in the reporting reviewed for this article whether anyone else will face charges arising from the gunfire. The sentencing closes the main criminal case against Carter with a murder conviction and a decades-long prison term. Carter is expected to serve his sentence in the Indiana correctional system, where officials will calculate applicable credit and release information under state law.

Author note: Last updated July 28, 2026.