Girlfriend of suspect officials say killed Officer Pitts is sentenced

By Lucy Perry
Indiana Central News

A woman connected to the now -deceased suspect officials say killed Terre Haute Department Police Officer Rob Pitts was sentenced today for lying during investigation.
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Vigo Superior Court, Div. 1 Judge John Roach sentenced Lakrista J. Julian, 20, of Terre Haute, to one year in the Vigo County Jail, credit for time already served on home detention, and the remaining sentence suspended.  She will be supervised on formal probation for the remainder of the one- year sentence.

​Julian, the girlfriend of the shooting suspect, entered a guilty plea to level 6 obstruction of Justice last month.

Officials say the 21-year-old suspect, Chris Wolfe, initiated the gunfire that killed Pitts,46, at the Garden Quarter apartment complex in May 2018. Officers at the scene returned the gunfire. Ultimately, Wolfe's cause of death was determined to be suicide; but, he had also reportedly been grazed by a bullet during the shootout with police. Officers had gone to the apartment complex, just south of Terre Haute, to serve a warrant on the suspect following a homicide investigation regarding the death of Wolfe's roommate, Robert "Paulie' Olson, 26.

According to Chief Deputy Prosecutor Robert Roberts, Julian had no criminal history and had requested the conviction be entered as a Class A misdemeanor, rather than a felony.  However, the State argued she receive a felony conviction with home detention and probation.  

"Given the level of the offense and her lack of criminal history, under the law she qualified to have her conviction entered as a misdemeanor," said Roberts.  "Our primary goal was for her to receive a felony conviction so that she, and others in similar circumstances, would know that it is never appropriate to lie to investigators during a recorded interview.  I am pleased that the Court agreed with us that her crime is serious and deserves a felony conviction."

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