Medical examiner documents, surveillance videos presented on third day of murder trial

To read day two trial coverage, click here. 

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A trove of witnesses gave testimonies scattered across the timeline attorneys have been piecing together throughout a trial assessing Quentin Lamont Porter, Jr.’s innocence in the murder of Malik Darea Sims. 

Several discussed what happened to Sims’ gray Audi A4, which was found by police near Indianapolis, outside of Porter’s grandmother’s house. 

Sims was found dead with a single gunshot wound to the head on July 15, 2024, off Stephenson Road in Owen County. He had last been seen with Porter, when he allegedly gave him a ride. 

According to public defender Megan Schueler, Porter claimed Sims was killed by someone who pulled up in a white SUV. Schueler said Porter was scared for his life and thought the incident might have to do with marijuana. 

Law enforcement used Flock Safety cameras, Snapchat data and business surveillance cameras to track Sims’ vehicle and phone from his Bloomington apartment, through Ellettsville, to the location he was found and up to the Indianapolis area. 

Makayla Moore told Owen County Prosecutor Benjamin Kim that she was at her grandmother’s house when Porter, her cousin, arrived around 11 p.m. July 14, 2024.

On July 23, 2026, the third day of Porter’s trial, she said no one was expecting him when he showed up that night. The house was asleep. She didn’t talk to him that night, but saw him through the doorbell camera. She had never seen the vehicle he was driving before. 

He had allegedly arrived in Sims’ Audi A4. 

Porter wasn’t at the residence when police came on July 16, 2024. Indiana State Police evidence technicians processed the vehicle the next morning, finding blood, bleach and seat covers. 

On July 17, Jared Lentz, who owns JL Transport Towing and Recovery in Bloomington, received a call from someone claiming to be Malik Sims, asking to tow a car. The person paid with Sims’s credit card. 

Lentz had heard about Sims’ death on the news that morning, but said in his testimony that he didn’t make the connection and couldn’t remember where he had heard the name before. 

He sent a driver out to tow the car from an address on the east side of Indianapolis, but when he got there, he couldn’t find the car. 

Moore said a tow driver appeared at her grandmother’s house looking for the Audi A4, which police had already towed themselves, and her family explained that it was gone.

The towing company called the number that had requested the tow. 

“I tried calling the number back at least a dozen times,” Lentz said.

It turned out that the number belonged to Mia Hilkowitz, who was a student at Indiana University at the time. 

She told the courtroom that on July 17, someone approached her at the pool at her apartment in Bloomington, and asked to use her phone. He said his car broke down and his phone was dead. 

He returned it a few minutes later. After the man left, she received a text message with a towing bill. She started getting calls from a tow truck company, saying they were looking to tow a car. Eventually she picked up and told them it wasn’t hers. 

Later, one of Lentz’ drivers told him where he must’ve remembered Sims’ name from, and he called the police. 

Max Rollins with Saguaro Forensic Consulting Firm, the firm that performed Sims’ autopsy, was brought in as a witness after Lentz. Rollins is a forensic pathologist and told the jury his job includes determining the cause and manner, or circumstance, of a person’s death.

In Sims’ case, the cause of death was a gunshot wound, and the manner was a homicide, Rollins said. 

While the autopsy was performed on July 18, Sims’ body was in a state of decomposition. Rollins said there was “extensive larvae activity” around the neck, armpit and face. 

The defects caused by maggots eating tissue and laying eggs can obscure examiners’ analysis of injuries. 

The autopsy report was still able to show that the bullet entered through the left temple, near the trachus, and exited near the right temple. However, the decomposition had changed the head severely enough that the skin couldn’t be used to determine the distance of the gunfire. Rollins said he didn’t recall seeing soot on the entrance of the wound, which would indicate it wasn’t a contact headshot. 

Rollins also said he found a small bullet fragment in Sims’ head. 

The amount of decomposition that had occurred also made it extremely difficult to determine the time of Sims’ death, Rollins said. 

Later, the court heard testimony from several Ellettsville business owners, who shared their surveillance footage of the road with law enforcement. 

The trial is ongoing and is expected to take place over the course of eight days.