In the days before a Center Grove man was murdered, the man charged in his death followed him and sat outside his home, watching him, police said.
Joseph Evan Avart, 37, Plainfield, who was charged with murder in the death of Andrew Perry, told police he altered his phone number to send text messages to Perry and the woman that both men had been dating. Avart told police he followed Perry home from the airport two days before his death, and the night before, he parked outside his home to watch him.
On Dec. 2, Avart went to Perry’s home in the Stone Village neighborhood, off Stones Crossing Road, to confront him about the woman. Avart had dated the woman on and off since earlier in the year, and police said he was infatuated with her.
Avart told police that he and Perry had argued about the woman. At one point, Avart tripped and fell, and he told police that Perry moved toward him. Avart told police he got out a gun and shot Perry in the head. Once he saw Perry was dead, Avart tried to stage the home to make it look like a burglary, police said.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryInvestigators found no bullets or shell casings in the home, Sheriff Doug Cox said.
An autopsy found Perry died of blunt force trauma to the head. Perry also had a puncture wound to his head, which officials believed could have been caused by a screwdriver or ice pick, Cox said.
Later that morning, Perry missed a grooming appointment for his dog, and his mother went to check on him, and found him dead in a pool of blood on the floor of his home, police said. Perry’s girlfriend had also tried to text and call him after leaving his house that morning and got no response, the report said.
Since then, investigators had been talking with Avart, after Perry filed two harassment reports in the months leading up to his death.
Avart had previously dated Perry’s live-in girlfriend, and wanted to start a relationship again. The woman was seeing both men, and told police that had caused some tension between Avart and Perry, the report said.
Both Perry and the woman were receiving harassing text messages from numbers they didn’t know, saying they knew the woman was with Perry, and that the person was going to tell Avart, including when they had gone on a trip out of town together, according to police reports Perry filed with the sheriff’s office in November.
Avart later told police he had altered his phone number and sent those text messages, Cox said.
Avart initially told police he was not at Perry’s house that morning, and was at home. He told police he had followed Perry from the airport to Greenwood on Nov. 30, wanting to scare him, and that he had sat outside his home on Dec. 1, but then returned to his home in Plainfield around 8:30 p.m. and didn’t leave until the next afternoon, the report said.
But detectives checked his cellphone and found it was using cellphone towers in Greenwood that morning. Avart had also contacted a friend the day before the murder to ask how to turn off the location on his cellphone, according to the police report.
When investigators confronted Avart with the information about his location that morning, he told them about going to Perry’s house, getting in a confrontation and killing him, Cox said.
He told police he then emptied out kitchen drawers and cabinets and dumped them on the floor to make it look like the home had been burglarized, the police report said.
Police also found a baggy with a white substance on the ground next to Perry. The substance tested negative as a drug, but is still being tested to determine what it is, Cox said. Avart told police it must have fallen out of his pocket, the report said.
Avart had no prior criminal history, police said. He now faces 45 to 65 years in prison on the murder charge, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Avart, 1595 Willow Grove Way, was arrested and taken to the Johnson County jail, where he was held without bond.
