Man arrested after filming rape of 12-year-old girl

INDIANAPOLIS – A man was arrested after reportedly breaking into a west Indianapolis home and raping a mother and her daughter while recording it on his phone.

According to court documents filed Sunday in Marion County, 21-year-old Teshon Gardner has been preliminarily charged with two counts of rape, both of which are first-degree felonies, in connection with an incident at a home on South Worth Avenue on Saturday.

At approximately 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department were called to a 911 call regarding a rape that had just occurred. When officers arrived, a woman at the scene told them that she and her 12-year-old daughter had been raped at gunpoint in their home.

The woman told police she had recently returned home from a tire shop when she heard a knock on the front door. When she opened the door, a man wearing an American flag mask pointed a gun at her and demanded that she let him in, documents say.

When the man entered the house, he allegedly raped the woman on the couch and the floor. While looking at family photos on the wall, he asked the woman if anyone else was in the house, according to the documents. The woman told the man that no one else was in the house.

The man then stopped raping her and walked down the hallway where the woman’s children were sleeping. The documents say the man told the woman to get one of her children and return to the living room.

The man then allegedly raped the woman and a 12-year-old child multiple times. The woman told police that the man, later identified by police as Gardner, arrived at her home around 11:30 a.m. and left around 12:30 p.m. The woman then gave police a description of the man, including an indecipherable tattoo beginning with the letter “M,” and said Gardner allegedly filmed himself on his cellphone during the rape.

Based on the description and nearby cameras, police were able to locate a blue Ford F-150 linked to Gardner at a home on W. 28th Street. Gardner was later arrested by police during a traffic stop at W. 30th Street and Annette Street.

When interviewed by police, Gardner said he was the sole driver of the truck that day and spent most of the day “just driving around.” The documents say he denied having sexual contact with anyone that day or sexually assaulting anyone.

When Gardner was questioned about his tattoo, he allegedly showed police the tattoo on the left side of his torso that had the word “Motown” written on it. The documents state that Gardner could not explain how the victims in the case knew about the tattoo.