Noah Brimmage faces two murder counts, but reports say surveillance footage showed two people following the victims before the shooting.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The arrest of Noah Brimmage answered one of the largest questions in a three-year-old Indianapolis double homicide: police now say they have identified a man responsible for the deaths of Olivia Katherine Brown and Darian Jamar Wiley. But the surveillance account that helped define the case from its beginning still contains another figure who has not been publicly charged.
Two hooded people were recorded following Brown, 24, and Wiley, 27, before the friends were shot on May 6, 2023, according to footage described by local news organizations and later reports about the investigation. Brimmage, now 24, faces two counts of murder and several related charges after detectives reopened their examination of the evidence. Authorities have not publicly announced a second arrest, leaving unresolved who was with the alleged attacker and what role that person may have played.
That open question matters because the earliest visual evidence described a two-person pursuit rather than a lone figure suddenly appearing at the scene. Wiley had been walking Brown toward her vehicle after the two spent the evening out. Surveillance footage showed the pair behind them gaining ground as Brown and Wiley moved through the near north-side neighborhood. A nearby resident later told reporters the followers appeared to be walking quickly. Gunshots came moments later. What the publicly described video does not establish on its own is which person fired, whether both were armed or whether their roles were the same.
The attack unfolded around East 21st and Ruckle streets. Wiley was shot in the roadway, according to police accounts and later court reporting. Brown reached her vehicle, got inside and attempted to leave, but she was also struck by gunfire. Early police reports said officers responded shortly after 12:30 a.m. to the broader East 21st Street and Central Avenue area, where they found a man and woman with gunshot wounds. Both died at the scene. Their identities were released later by the Marion County Coroner’s Office.
For investigators, the immediate challenge was much larger than identifying the two shadowed figures in a surveillance image. Police had to determine why Brown and Wiley were followed, whether the attack was planned, what property may have been taken and what evidence could connect any specific person to the gunfire. Authorities did not publicly announce a motive in the days after the killings. Residents were left with the fact of a double homicide on a neighborhood street and little public information about who had committed it.
The lack of an arrest stretched on. Two years after the killings, according to IMPD, the department’s unsolved homicide unit took responsibility for the case. The new detectives did not begin with an empty file; they inherited surveillance material, forensic evidence, information collected during the original investigation and records tied to events after the shooting. Police said they reconsidered that material and used different investigative perspectives to answer questions that had resisted resolution.
One of the most important pieces of the renewed case had actually surfaced almost immediately after the homicide. A gun belonging to Wiley was found in a vehicle associated with Brimmage during a traffic stop the following day, according to the probable cause affidavit as described by People. Investigators later connected that discovery with communications they attributed to Brimmage. Reports say the messages included statements about robbing people before the shooting and an effort to sell Wiley’s firearm afterward. Prosecutors cite those facts as evidence, but the allegations remain subject to challenge in court.
The investigation also examined alleged conduct around Brimmage in the period after the deaths. Court documents summarized in news reports describe accusations involving another shooting, a getaway vehicle and an arson. Brimmage was later convicted of arson and criminal recklessness in an unrelated case and was incarcerated at the Branchville Correctional Facility when homicide investigators identified him as a suspect in Brown’s and Wiley’s deaths. Those prior convictions do not determine whether he committed the homicides now charged.
When prosecutors filed the new case, Brimmage was charged with two counts of murder as well as robbery resulting in bodily injury, three counts of battery by means of a deadly weapon and criminal recklessness, according to court records cited by Law&Crime. The robbery allegation provides one possible legal framework for the encounter, but the complete prosecution theory and the evidence supporting each element of the charges will have to be established through court filings, hearings or trial. A charge is not a conviction.
Even if prosecutors prove their case against Brimmage, the second figure could remain significant. Public reporting has not established whether police believe that person was a participant, an accomplice, a witness or something else. Authorities have also not said in the reports reviewed whether the person’s identity is known to investigators but being withheld. The difference matters: an unidentified person still being sought presents a different investigative situation from an identified individual against whom prosecutors believe they lack sufficient evidence to file charges.
The unanswered issue also shapes what the arrest means for the victims’ families. Brown’s relatives spent more than three years without a publicly charged defendant. Her sister Hannah Carter said during that period that the family felt caught in an uncertain space while life moved forward around them and people risked forgetting Brown and Wiley. The Brimmage charges give the family a defendant whose alleged role can now be examined in court, but they do not necessarily supply a complete account of everyone involved.
The people whose final moments appear in that investigative timeline had lives extending well beyond the shooting scene. Brown worked as a therapist at the Emberwood Center after graduating from Ball State University and earning a master’s degree from Indiana Wesleyan University. She was working toward becoming a licensed clinical social worker. Her obituary recalled a woman who loved reading, cats, cooking, exercise and travel and who had chosen work centered on helping others.
Wiley was an Indianapolis native who had graduated from Arsenal Technical High School and earned a construction management degree from Ball State. His obituary said he had participated in football and robotics and developed his professional interest through the ACE program. Friends and relatives remembered his enthusiasm for music, efforts to play guitar and enjoyment of golf. More than any specific hobby, they described a man who liked being around other people and making them laugh.
Their deaths had an immediate effect beyond their families. Residents near the scene told news organizations in 2023 that the shooting intensified worries about neighborhood violence. One nearby resident said the area had experienced occasional robberies but nothing comparable to the double killing. In those first days, people could see the result of the violence but knew almost nothing about the individuals police were trying to identify. Surveillance footage became one of the few publicly discussed clues.
Three years later, that clue has acquired a different meaning. Investigators say they have developed enough evidence to accuse Brimmage formally, and the discovery of Wiley’s gun and the alleged communications surrounding it give prosecutors evidence beyond the images of two followers. Still, the footage remains important precisely because it prevents the story from collapsing into a simple one-defendant narrative before all of the facts are known. It records the presence of someone else whose role has not been publicly accounted for.
The criminal case against Brimmage must now move through the courts, where he is presumed innocent unless prosecutors prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Public reports reviewed as of Aug. 28 did not establish a final resolution of those murder charges or the filing of charges against another person in Brown’s and Wiley’s deaths. Investigators have therefore made a major break in a case that once appeared stalled, but they have not publicly closed every gap in the story.
For now, the case stands between breakthrough and completion. A named defendant faces prosecution, families have an avenue through which the state’s evidence can be tested, and detectives say years of renewed work produced results. At the same time, the second hooded figure described in the surveillance record remains an unanswered question — one that may determine whether the full circumstances of the killings of Brown and Wiley are ever established in public.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 28, 2026.