Investigators say the victim was the suspect’s brother’s girlfriend and the struggle began while he had stepped away.
OWEN COUNTY, Ind. — The Indiana bonfire death case now heading toward trial is also a family story, with court records saying the woman who died, Kiersten Moore, was the girlfriend of the accused woman’s brother when a late night gathering erupted into violence.
That relationship has become one of the most striking details in a case that prosecutors have charged as involuntary manslaughter rather than murder. Samantha Mae Mayhew, 33, of Poland, Indiana, is accused of assaulting Moore during an argument at a private residence on Private Road 525 West. Moore, identified by The Owen News as 27, was later pronounced dead at Putnam County Hospital. The state’s account suggests the conflict broke out not in a long-running public dispute but in a close social setting among people who knew one another.
According to witness statements cited in local coverage, the night was calm until Taylor Mayhew stepped away from the fire. During that brief gap, witnesses said, Samantha Mayhew turned to Moore and began aggressively asking why she did not have custody of her child. What had been an uneasy conversation quickly became a fight. A witness told investigators that Mayhew grabbed Moore’s hoodie and sent both women backward toward a rock pile near the fire pit. Others said they saw Mayhew on top of Moore. By the time Taylor Mayhew returned, according to the affidavit, he found his sister over his girlfriend and slammed into Samantha to pull her off. That move, witnesses believed, may have caused the cut and bloody injuries later seen on Samantha’s face.
Once the fight ended, the center of the scene shifted from conflict to rescue. The first deputy arrived after a 12:32 a.m. dispatch and found Samantha Mayhew not at the fire pit but out on the road. At the property, the officer found the homeowner performing CPR on Moore, who was lying on her back near the rock pile. Responders from the Cataract Volunteer Fire Department joined deputies and used an AED, but Moore never regained consciousness. She was later pronounced dead at Putnam County Hospital. One local report said officers did not observe visible injuries on Moore even after the failed rescue effort, a detail that may matter as the case moves deeper into forensic review.
Investigators also collected a portrait of the accused woman’s condition that night. Deputies said Mayhew smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and appeared unsteady. The Owen News reported that she escaped from the back of a patrol vehicle multiple times during the response. Witnesses described her as highly intoxicated, while Moore was described as calm before the argument. The differing accounts of each woman’s behavior could become important to prosecutors trying to explain how the confrontation started and to defense lawyers trying to explain what Mayhew understood in those minutes. Officers later executed a search warrant at the property and found blood evidence on the ground, on a white table and on a hat near the site of the struggle.
The case is also notable for the uncertainty that still surrounds it. Witnesses suggested a chokehold may have been used. Others focused on the backward fall into the rock pile. The sheriff’s office said on March 3 that it had not announced a cause of death because that finding had not yet been determined and urged the public not to spread rumors. That warning signaled how incomplete the public record still was even after an arrest. It also helps explain why prosecutors filed involuntary manslaughter first, a charge that can fit a fatal assault without requiring proof of a deliberate plan to kill.
Mayhew was booked into the Owen County Security Center after receiving medical treatment, and her bond was set at $30,000. Court dates were scheduled for April 16, July 10 and Aug. 18. For now, the case stands at a difficult intersection of family ties, alcohol, conflicting statements and a death that unfolded in minutes after a personal question around a rural fire pit. The next major step is likely to come in court, where investigators’ scattered witness accounts will have to harden into a single narrative.
Author note: Last updated March 31, 2026.