A woman accused of helping her boyfriend shoot Waterloo Deputy Marshal Stephen Brady in December was arrested Friday immediately after she was released from a Fort Wayne hospital, Indiana State Police said.
Julie Marie King, 33, of Auburn was booked into the DeKalb County Jail and held without bail on charges of felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aiding in attempted murder, state police said.
The charge of felony murder means King is accused of committing a crime in which a person is killed. In this case, that person was her boyfriend, Ralph Hardiek, 41, of Auburn, who was shot to death by police.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed Friday, King and Hardiek intended to travel to Utah so Hardiek would not be sent to prison on a drug charge. To raise money for their trip, they planned to go door-to-door robbing people at gunpoint, the affidavit said.
Brady, who was shot in the face while on duty, survived the ordeal and has been able to speak with investigators, the affidavit said.
Brady, 47, told investigators he was talking with King about 2:45 a.m. Dec. 15 near Center and Railroad streets in Waterloo, when her boyfriend, Ralph Hardiek, shot him.
The shooting of the veteran officer prompted a large hunt for the suspects. Police found them about 6 a.m. that day under the deck of a house near where Brady was shot.
Officers drew their guns, identified themselves as police and ordered the couple many times to show their hands and come out from under the deck, which was about 18 inches off the ground, but they refused, according to the affidavit.
At one point, Hardiek was apparently shot with a Taser but did not surrender, the affidavit said.
A detective at the scene reported that Hardiek and King were “wound tightly together” and that he saw Hardiek put his hands on both sides of King’s face in an “emotional gesture,” the affidavit said.
Hardiek then brandished a handgun and pointed it at officers. The detective yelled “Gun, gun, gun,” and several officers fired, according to the affidavit.
The officers shot and killed Hardiek. King, who was shot multiple times and critically injured, was taken to the hospital.
A week before the shootings, Hardiek had missed a Dec. 8 sentencing hearing in Noble Circuit Court on a charge of dealing methamphetamine. His plea agreement called for a 12-year sentence, with six years to serve.
The affidavit outlines how this looming sentence motivated Hardiek and King in the days before Brady was shot.
From Dec. 8 to Dec. 11, the couple stayed near Coldwater, Mich., at the home of one of King’s friends. That friend told investigators Hardiek and King asked for his help in modifying their guns, including filing off trigger guards, so they could be fired more easily.
After Hardiek and King were shot, police found three guns on them that corroborated the friend’s statement: a .44-caliber special revolver with a modified trigger guard; a .22-caliber revolver with a modified trigger guard; and a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun without a butt stock.
The friend’s son told investigators the couple told him they needed money to go to Utah so Hardiek could avoid prison. The couple planned to knock on doors and rob people to fund their trip west, the affidavit said.
On Dec. 13, the couple, who had left the home of King’s friend, returned. On the night of Dec. 14, they put guns to the head of a man in the home (not the friend or his son), took his wallet and drove back to Indiana where their car got stuck on a muddy road off DeKalb County Road 10, near County Road 35, the affidavit said.
About 2 a.m. Dec. 15, King and Hardiek knocked on the door of a home about 2 1/2 miles from where their car was stuck. King told the woman who answered the door that she needed help getting her car out of the mud. King wanted the woman’s husband to use his truck to pull her car out, but the woman refused.
About 2:45 a.m., that woman met Brady at the Shell station in Waterloo while running an errand and told him about the couple. Brady and Waterloo officer Zach Moord drove around looking for Hardiek and King, and Brady found them near the intersection of Railroad and Center streets in Waterloo.
Brady told investigators he asked the couple for identification, which they said they did not have. Brady said that as he was talking to King about her name and identification, Hardiek shot him in the face.
Shortly afterward, Moord arrived at the scene and found Brady on his hands and knees suffering from the gunshot wound. Officers from multiple agencies then began looking for Hardiek and King.
A couple who live two houses from the scene of the shooting were concerned by the large police presence and decided to take their children to a local church. After turning on the headlights of their van, they could see someone lying under their deck, the affidavit said.
Police were notified, and about 6 a.m., officers arrived to find Hardiek and King.
