The woman told police her former boyfriend entered her bedroom, shot her and then fired at 33-year-old Venel Emile.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The woman who survived a shooting inside her Indianapolis apartment told investigators that her former boyfriend entered the bedroom where she was with another man, shot her as she tried to confront him and then fired at the man, who later died at a hospital.
That account is central to the case against 50-year-old Bertony Theagene, who was arrested after the Aug. 31 shooting and charged with murder, attempted murder and burglary. The man who died was identified as 33-year-old Venel Emile. The surviving woman’s identity has not been released in the reports reviewed for this article. Police say Theagene was found close to the apartment after the gunfire, still armed, and surrendered after the weapon allegedly failed when he tried to turn it on himself.
The woman described a confrontation that began inside what should have been a private residential space. She told investigators that she and Emile were lying in a bedroom when Theagene came into the apartment. According to published accounts of the probable-cause affidavit, she got up to confront him. Before she could stop him, she said, Theagene fired and wounded her. The reports do not give a detailed description of her injuries, but she survived and was able to speak with police about what had happened.
Her account continued with Emile moving toward Theagene after the first shot. Investigators say Theagene fired again, striking Emile in the abdomen. Theagene then left the apartment, according to the woman’s statement. Despite being wounded, she locked him outside. Published reports say Theagene later tried to regain entry but could not get back in. That detail places the surviving woman’s actions after the shootings among the events investigators used to reconstruct how the encounter unfolded before officers arrived.
Police had been dispatched shortly before 1 a.m. to the apartment complex in the 3000 block of Bayside Drive after a 911 report involving gunfire. When officers arrived, they found both the woman and Emile wounded. Emergency crews took them to a hospital. Emile died a short time later. The Marion County Coroner’s Office determined that his death from the shooting was a homicide, according to local reporting cited by Law&Crime. The homicide ruling describes the manner of death; it does not itself determine the criminal guilt of a particular defendant.
While police investigated the apartment and surrounding area, an officer reportedly spotted Theagene hiding beneath a staircase nearby. Authorities said he had a firearm and tried to shoot himself, but the gun malfunctioned. He then surrendered. Reports do not describe officers firing their weapons during the encounter. His arrest close to the apartment ended the immediate search for a suspect and allowed detectives to question him about why he went there and how the shootings occurred.
Theagene reportedly told investigators that he had gone to his former girlfriend’s home to confront her about having another man there. He also told police that he brought a gun because he did not know whether that man would be armed, according to the probable-cause affidavit quoted in news reports. Police attributed to him an explanation that he wanted the firearm for protection. Those statements gave investigators an account of why Theagene went to the apartment and why he was armed before the confrontation began.
But Theagene disputed the surviving woman’s description of deliberate gunfire. He reportedly said the first discharge happened while his former girlfriend was trying to take the firearm from him. He also claimed the second discharge occurred as Emile came toward him. In his account, both shootings were accidental. The woman’s statement, by contrast, was described in reporting as an account of Theagene opening fire after entering the bedroom. Those competing narratives have not been resolved by a trial in the material reviewed for this article.
The surviving woman was not the only person who gave police information about the disturbance. Another witness reportedly said she was awakened and heard a family member shouting that Theagene was trying to kill her with a gun. The witness said she heard two shots and later learned he had left. That person did not provide the same direct view of the shootings described by the wounded woman, but the statement supplied detectives with another account of what could be heard during the confrontation.
Emile’s death changed what began as an emergency response involving two wounded people into a homicide investigation. Records of Indianapolis fatal shootings list Emile among those killed in the city on Aug. 31. Published accounts identify him by name and age but disclose little else about his life or his relationship with the surviving woman. Investigators instead focused their publicly reported case on the events in the apartment and on Theagene’s statements following his arrest.
The burglary allegation adds another element to the prosecution beyond the two shootings. Authorities accuse Theagene of unlawfully entering his former girlfriend’s home before the violence. The available reports say the woman described him as barging into the apartment and later said she locked him out after he left. Theagene’s reported explanation that he went there to confront her about another man does not, on its own, resolve whether he had permission to enter. That issue, like his intent when the gun fired, remains part of an unresolved criminal case rather than an established trial finding.
The case therefore rests not only on the fatal outcome but on a sequence in which the survivor’s description, the witness account, the circumstances of Theagene’s arrest and Theagene’s own statements can be compared. Prosecutors have charged him with intentional offenses, while he reportedly characterized the gunfire as accidental. No conviction is reported in the sources reviewed for this story, and the charges remain allegations that prosecutors would have to prove in court.
Theagene was being held at the Marion County Jail without bond, Law&Crime reported Sept. 3, and a jury trial had been scheduled for Dec. 15. The available reporting reviewed through Oct. 19 did not document a later material change to that setting. The surviving woman’s name remains withheld in those reports, while the criminal case continues to center on what happened in her apartment during the early-morning confrontation.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.