The trial of an Indianapolis man charged with the 2020 murder of a Gary man began Monday with prosecutors previewing the evidence in the case and the defense attorney asking the jury to pay attention to what evidence isn’t presented.

Joseph T. Durden was charged in March 2022 with the July 19, 2020 murder of Keith Daniel, 29, of Gary. On that day, shots rang out in the 600 block of Maryland Street before a car sped away, said Lake County Prosecutor’s Office attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz.

“As the smoke cleared,” Jatkiewicz said, Daniel was lying in the street injured. Daniel was transported to Methodist Hospital in Gary where he was pronounced dead of multiple gunshot wounds, according to court documents.

Daniel was shot in the back multiple times and once in the back of the hand, Jatkiewicz said. Police collected eight casings at the scene, and all the casings were found to have come from one weapon, she said.

Police were called at 9 p.m. in July 2020 to the 1800 block of Connecticut Street, where they found a 2001 Oldsmobile Alero riddled with bullet holes, according to court records.

The car was traced to Durden. A shell casing found there matched the ones extracted from Daniel, documents show.

An officer who arrived on scene reported that he noticed something in the road that looked like a “french fry with ketchup on it,” Jatkiewicz said. The officer told evidence technicians to collect the item, which later turned out to be a part of the seat cushion from the car located in the 1800 block of Connecticut, she said.

Jatkiewicz said Durden’s name came up in the early hours of the investigation based on the testimony from a woman who lives on the block where the shooting took place. Police also obtained video from the scene, Jatkiewicz said, that shows Durden and Daniel.

John Cantrell, Durden’s attorney, said the jury should pay attention to what evidence is and isn’t presented. The prosecution’s case, Cantrell said, boils down to two people were in a vehicle and one of them died, so the other person committed the murder.

“They don’t have evidence,” Cantrell said. “They have a bunch of bits and pieces.”

Cantrell said the case is tragic because it resulted in Daniel dying.

“It’s sad, and I’m sorry that that happened,” Cantrell said.

The prosecution can’t prove that Durden and Daniel were in the car together because there’s “no time stamp on DNA.”

Cantrell said what prosecutors didn’t state in opening statements was that a third piece of DNA was found at the scene of an unidentified person, and he raised questions about who that person could be.

“The evidence they have to bring to prove he did this doesn’t exist,” Cantrell said.

akukulka@chicagotribune.com