Judge Natalie Bokota denied a Gary man’s bid for bail last week who is accused of killing his child’s mother’s new boyfriend.
Prosecutors charged Ralph Stokes, 24, with murder in Jimmijion Bailey’s shooting death on Oct. 5. His body was found decapitated Oct. 11 on the 2300 block of Clay Street with his arms and knees bound with black tape.
His next court hearing is Sept. 24.
In a police interview, Stokes claimed he shot Bailey before the other man could kill him.
“I made a mistake, but it was out of self-defense,” he said on a videotaped recording.
Investigators were tipped off on Oct. 10 that Bailey was shot inside the girlfriend’s apartment. His body was moved to the bathroom for several hours. His car was taken to 9th and Roosevelt to “throw off the investigation.” The girlfriend changed her number after Bailey was killed, the affidavit states.
“Why would you do that with our child present?” the ex-girlfriend screamed.
“That’s who I am,” Stokes responded.
The girlfriend’s mother Betty Ann Tomlinson, 50, was charged in June with arson, conspiracy to commit arson and assisting a criminal
Lake County Prosecutor’s Homicide Task Force Detective Jason Szemes wrote that Tomlinson bought cleaning supplies for Stokes from a Walgreens on Oct. 6. Then, she bought two bottles of lighter fluid around 3 a.m. Oct. 11 from a Citgo gas station in Gary.
Investigators found three nearly empty liter fluid bottles — including the two she bought — left in the apartment.
Bailey’s relatives said previously he had just started dating the woman a few weeks earlier and Stokes, her child’s father, was jealous.
License plate readers showed Bailey showed up at the apartment on Oct. 5. Later, his Chrysler 200 was driven off, followed by a black Audi toward 9th and Roosevelt, to ditch Bailey’s car, before the black car headed back to the apartment.
Then, the black Audi and Ford Flex head to the 2300 block of Clay Street, where Bailey’s body was later found. An Infiniti also showed up at the apartment for 20 minutes that night. Those vehicles were all registered to Stokes’ relatives, records show.
When police executed a search warrant on Oct. 11 in the girlfriend’s apartment on the 500 block of Vermillion Place, they were hit with “an overpowering chemical odor” and saw “several lighter fluid bottles” on the floor.
