Indiana State Police reopened the stalled investigation, gathered new witness accounts and arrested Derek Pixley more than two years after Boman died.
HENRYVILLE, Ind. — For more than two years after Brittney Boman was found critically wounded in woods near Brownstown Road, no one was charged with killing her. That changed after Indiana State Police cold-case detectives took over the investigation, reinterviewed witnesses and brought the evidence back to prosecutors.
The renewed investigation led to the May 2025 arrest of Derek James Pixley, Boman’s boyfriend at the time of the Oct. 2, 2022, shooting. Pixley is charged with murder and has not been convicted. The case has since survived another major turning point: A Clark County judge rejected a proposed plea agreement in July 2026 that would have reduced the charge to reckless homicide and imposed a six-year prison sentence. The rejection placed the prosecution back on course for a murder trial, which the most recent reports schedule for Nov. 30.
The cold-case work is central to understanding why a homicide investigation that initially produced no murder charge eventually resulted in Pixley’s arrest. Clark County deputies were called to Brownstown Road on the night Boman was shot and found the 29-year-old severely injured. She was transported to a Louisville hospital, where she remained for nearly three months. She died on Dec. 30, 2022. Authorities investigated the death as a homicide, but the initial case did not establish a basis prosecutors believed sufficient to charge anyone with her killing.
Pixley was known to investigators from the beginning. He was at the scene after the shooting, and authorities arrested him that night on a separate allegation involving violation of a protective order Boman had filed against him. WDRB later quoted family spokesperson Shawn Bostock as saying Pixley had been considered a person of interest before the case went cold. The murder investigation remained unresolved until December 2024, when the Clark County Sheriff’s Department transferred it to the Indiana State Police Cold Case Unit. State police said detectives then conducted numerous interviews and reviewed the existing investigation.
One of the most consequential new accounts came from a witness identified in reports as Ryan Heath. According to court documents described by WAVE, Heath told investigators in April 2025 that Pixley had visited his home the day before Boman was shot and said he wanted to kill her if he found her. Heath also alleged that Pixley came back on the day of the shooting, displayed a gun and asked whether Boman was inside. He said Pixley later drove away toward the intersection of Brownstown Road and County Lake Road. Heath reported hearing a gunshot and then hearing Pixley’s vehicle speed away. Those statements are allegations and have not yet been evaluated by a trial jury.
The renewed investigation also focused on what happened immediately after the gunfire. Court documents reported by WLKY and WAVE say Pixley went to a stranger’s home and said someone had shot his girlfriend and asked the resident to get a gun. The resident called 911 and gave the phone to Pixley, according to the reports. Pixley then spoke with the dispatcher and walked toward Boman’s location. Investigators have treated those actions, along with witness statements and other information gathered during the cold-case inquiry, as part of the evidence supporting the prosecution. Public reports do not indicate that Boman herself identified Pixley as the shooter.
What Boman could tell investigators has become an important part of the case. While hospitalized, she said she had been hiding from Pixley in the woods because of his behavior when angry, according to court documents described by WLKY. She said she could not see who shot her. Bostock said Boman remembered being blinded by a light, hearing a shot and feeling pain before moving in and out of consciousness. Reports say she told investigators that Pixley was present when she woke after being wounded. That account places him near her after the shooting, but it is not an eyewitness identification of the person who fired the shot.
Indiana State Police Sgt. Carey Huls said in 2025 that cold-case detective Matt Busick conducted an independent investigation on top of the material already collected. Huls said that a renewed inquiry can produce changed or additional statements. Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said the case developed one piece at a time until the accumulated evidence led him to conclude there was enough to proceed. Prosecutors filed the murder charge, and police arrested Pixley in Scott County on May 12, 2025, without incident. He was taken to the Clark County Jail.
The defense immediately challenged the foundation of the case. At Pixley’s first court appearance, his court-appointed attorney argued that the charging affidavit did not describe a recovered murder weapon or physical evidence linking Pixley to the shooting. The lawyer also attacked the sufficiency of the witness statements. Prosecutors answered that the statements, considered together, presented a clear basis for the murder allegation. Judge Nicholas Karaffa ordered Pixley held without bond. The hearing did not decide guilt; it set the conditions under which the criminal case would move forward.
More than a year later, the prosecution appeared close to ending without a murder trial. Court records reported by WAVE showed plea discussions developing in June 2026. The agreement eventually presented to Karaffa would have allowed Pixley to plead guilty to reckless homicide rather than face the murder charge at trial. Local reports said the proposed sentence was six years, with credit for time already served. The reason prosecutors agreed to those terms has not been publicly explained in the sources reviewed. Boman’s mother, Shawnee Goodman, strongly opposed the arrangement when the court considered it.
Karaffa rejected the agreement in July, saying the proposal fell outside the range the court found reasonable. Goodman had addressed the court before the ruling and said she did not believe the deal served people who had experienced domestic violence. The judge’s decision did not determine the facts of Boman’s death or rule that the prosecution’s cold-case evidence is true. It simply meant the negotiated disposition would not resolve the case on those terms. Pixley therefore continued to face the original murder accusation.
The long gap between Boman’s death and Pixley’s murder charge is likely to remain significant as the case approaches trial. The prosecution is relying in part on statements gathered or developed during a later investigation, including allegations about threats before the shooting. The defense has already questioned the absence of physical evidence identified in the probable-cause filing and may contest the reliability or timing of witness recollections. Boman’s inability to name the shooter also leaves prosecutors without a direct identification from the person who was attacked. Those issues are for the court and, if the case reaches trial, a jury to weigh under the rules of evidence.
Boman’s family had continued pressing publicly for progress during the period when the case was unresolved. Her mother spoke with local media in early 2023 as investigators were still working the homicide and later attended the proceedings after Pixley’s arrest. Family members again appeared in court when the plea agreement was considered in 2026. Their opposition helped place public attention on the proposed reduction in the charge, although the judge alone was responsible for deciding whether the agreement would be accepted.
The investigation that began with Clark County deputies in October 2022 is therefore entering a stage that seemed uncertain during the years when no murder charge was pending. Pixley remains accused, not convicted, and prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt if it goes before a jury. The most recent reliable reports reviewed place his trial on Nov. 30, with Pixley held without bond and under an order barring contact with Boman’s family.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 21, 2026.