A Gary woman who struck a deal with prosecutors was sentenced to 11 years Thursday in connection with the double slaying of two teens in Calumet Township.

During the hearing, two portraits of Dawn Carden emerged.

Her defense lawyer Nicholas Barnes said she got caught up in hiding a murder weapon after her boyfriend Alvino Amaya fatally shot Max Kroll, 17, and Elijah J. Robinson, 18, in Kroll’s grandparents’ basement where the teens lived on the 3900 block of West 51st Avenue in Calumet Township.

The motive was allegedly over a missing gun.

Amaya was convicted of murder in the Oct. 16, 2020, slayings and sentenced to 130 years in April. The teens’ deaths were an “execution-style” killing, prosecutors said.

Kroll and Robinson’s families, however, put as much or more blame on Carden — a known drug dealer who goes by “Mama D,” according to court documents — whom they called “manipulative” and a “predator,” believing she sent Amaya there.

“You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself that night,” Kroll’s sister Jasmine Dunfee said.

Both teen boys were “naive” and “caught up in a world that they should never be a part of,” with “drugs, firearms and dangerous people,” prosecutors said at Amaya’s trial.

Two weeks before the murders, Carden had a party for Elijah J. Robinson at her house that he, his girlfriend, his sister, Kroll, Carden’s son and Amaya all attended. Witnesses said the teens were drinking, smoking marijuana and taking ecstasy.

There were guns everywhere; the teens handled them and were taking pictures that were later posted on Snapchat, according to testimony.Turn to Sentenced, Page 4

Carden, 43, pleaded guilty Apr. 18 to assisting a criminal and dangerous control of a firearm, both level 5 felonies. The deal called for a sentence from one to 12 years, according to court documents.

Prosecutors alleged Carden was the main catalyst behind the teens’ deaths, but proving that was “difficult,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jacquelyn Altpeter said. She was originally charged with murder in the case.

According to court documents, Amaya and co-defendant Elijah D. Robinson, 18, no relation, went back to Carden’s house after the killings. The missing gun belonged to her and her son, documents allege.

“I just (expletive) killed them,” Amaya said, according to Carden’s plea agreement.

Carden and Amaya talked about hiding the murder weapon in a storage unit, it states. She had a storage unit set up at Nearby Self Storage in Gary in her father’s name, then hid the gun there, documents allege.

Elijah D. Robinson, the teens’ co-worker, pleaded guilty to residential entry, down from murder in exchange for his testimony. His sentencing is scheduled June 28.

Carden needed “someone else to take the fall,” Dunfee alleged during her victim impact statement.

Tragically, Dunfee and Kroll lost their mother — also named Dawn — to cancer in 2006 when he was three, she said. She believed her brother looked to Carden as a “motherly figure”, which made her “sick,” she said.

Everything went downhill after her son met Carden’s son, Robinson’s mother Brandi Kibler said. Carden gained the trust of other teen boys via drugs and access to guns, she alleged.

“If it wasn’t for Dawn, Max and Elijah would still be alive,” she said. “She is every mother’s worst nightmare.”

The slayings — over a gun — could have been avoided, Jonathan Robinson, Elijah’s father, said.

“I’ve known Dawn since middle school,” he said. “We could have figured this out. You sent (Amaya) to kill (them). I hope this haunts you for the rest of your life.”

Barnes gave his sympathies to the victim’s families, but told Judge Salvador Vasquez the focus legally was only on the charges she admitted in court — i.e. helping to hide the murder weapon and giving weapons to a minor.

Carden never murdered, orchestrated or ordered anyone’s death, he said.

“We have to separate that,” Barnes said. She accepted “full responsibility” for her actions.

He later asked the judge to disregard mention of an online petition with 1,900 signatures Dunfee said asked for Carden to get the maximum sentence.

Vasquez said he hadn’t seen it and would give it little weight in sentencing.

Within four days, she helped lead police to a Gary storage locker where guns, including the murder weapon were found, Barnes said. He argued her criminal history was “extremely limited” with only two prior misdemeanor convictions.

Carden had lost a son herself and dealt with anxiety, depression, a bipolar diagnosis and post traumatic stress disorder. Those were a “direct nexis” to her involvement in the case, her lawyer said.

He asked for 5 years, with 1.5 served in prison and 3.5 served in a combination of Lake County Community Corrections and probation.

Altpeter replied detectives found the storage locker on their own without help from Carden. If anything, she had her father register for the new unit, potentially putting him in trouble with the law, she said.

As Barnes alleged Carden was “overcharged” with murder, Altpeter said her role was “substantial”, but difficult to prove.

“Ms. Carden might be one of the most manipulative people to come before your court,” she told Vasquez.

When Robinson’s girlfriend — who was on Facetime with him before the murders — called Carden the next morning asking if she heard from him, she said no, even though she knew the pair were already dead, the prosecutor said.

“That’s not who I was,” Carden said, at times tearfully in court. “I’m sorry and they know that.”

“I made a mistake,” she said, adding there’s not a day where she was not thinking of it.

Vasquez accepted the plea. The crime involving the “horrific deaths of two young men” with two separate charges warranted a consecutive sentence, the judge said.

He couldn’t say if many of Barnes’ arguments — that she was a low risk to reoffend, would respond positively to rehabilitation or potentially her mother needed her out of prison due to health issues — would pan out.

“We don’t have crystal balls,” he said.

Carden had a chance to live a law-abiding life after two misdemeanor cases, but found herself entangled in the double murder case.

She is also facing federal indictment, the judge noted.

“I believe you are an extremely manipulative person,” Vasquez said.

He initially sentenced Carden to 14 years total in the Indiana Department of Corrections, before Altpeter interjected the maximum was 6 years on each count. Vasquez corrected and changed the sentence to 11 years.

Carden said she would appeal.