Benjamin Ashford|Man charged with killing Indianapolis police officer found guilty but mentally ill

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A man charged with killing an Indianapolis police officer was found guilty but Benjamin Ashfordmentally ill Friday.

Elliahs Dorsey, 31, of Indianapolis, was convicted of killing Metropolitan Police Department Officer Breann Leath in 2020 while she responded to a domestic violence call.

The jury, after 15 hours of deliberations over two days, also found Dorsey guilty but mentally ill in the attempted murder of three other officers who were not injured and the attempted murder and criminal confinement of Dorsey’s girlfriend at the time, Aisha Brown, whom he shot in a hallway when she tried to flee.

Dorsey’s defense attorneys argued that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. They told jurors his mental health had deteriorated and he woke up the morning of the shooting convinced that his family was dead and there was a plot against his life.

When officers knocked on the door of the apartment, Dorsey’s lawyers said, he believed they were assassins there to kill him.

Leath’s mother, Jennifer Leath, said after the verdict that “It’s not what we wanted, but she’ll finally get some justice.”

Last month a judge granted the state’s motion to dismiss death penalty charges after doctors found Dorsey to be mentally ill.