Walter Logan is accused of killing a man who had been missing for a month, after having sex with him, and putting the body in a broken freezer.


KOKOMO, Ind. -- Walter Logan knew he would be arrested when police officers knocked on his door.

"I've been waiting for you," Logan told them.

They came to his Kokomo home Sunday, looking for Alex Shipp, who had been missing for nearly a month.

"Is he here?" one of the officers asked Logan, according to a probable cause affidavit filed Monday.

"Yes he is," Logan said.

"Where?" one of the officers asked.

"In the basement," Logan said, "I put him in the freezer."

Detective Michael Banush of the Kokomo Police Department was one of the detectives who came to Logan's house looking for Shipp. The 51-year-old man directed them to the basement door, which had an ironing board lodged against it, Banush said in his report. They found an unplugged freezer lying on the floor with its door facing up; a large concrete block sat on top.

Inside was the 29-year-old homeless man's decomposing body. Based on Logan's account of what happened, Shipp's body had been in the freezer for nearly a month.

Logan told police he and Shipp had had a sexual relationship for about two years. About four weeks ago, Shipp came to his house, where they drank and did drugs, documents said. Logan told police they had sex that night. Afterward, he said Shipp became belligerent and tried to fight him.

That's when Logan bound Shipp's hands and feet with duct tape, he told police, and placed it over his nose and mouth, documents said.

The next morning, after he woke up, Logan thought Shipp was dead, but he wasn't sure, he told police. He then removed the duct tape, carried Shipp to the bedroom, laid him on a mattress, and went back to sleep.

He later saw blood around Shipp's head after he woke up, Logan told police. Six or seven hours later, he carried Shipp's body to the basement.

What prompted the fight between Logan and Shipp is still unclear.

Several days earlier, Logan apparently had told a friend, Dan Wagner, that Shipp was dead and that Logan was going to prison. Wagner said he didn't believe it until he saw a flier about a missing person that had Shipp's picture on it, according to court documents.

Around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Wagner called police and told them to go to Logan's house.

Shipp's mother, Rebecca Wolf, told police Saturday that she had not seen her son since Nov. 8, when she dropped him off at a local convenience store. Wolf told police it wasn't like Shipp to be out of touch for weeks.

Both men have had several encounters with police. According to the Indiana Department of Corrections database, Logan was convicted of dealing in cocaine in 2003 and was released from incarceration in Howard County in 2006.

Logan has been formally charged with murder. He is scheduled for an initial hearing Wednesday in Howard Circuit Court.

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