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Officials are tight-lipped as to why one of three charges against a Ligonier man accused of murder was dismissed this week in Kosciusko Circuit Court.
Christoval Dimas, 26, was in court last week seeking release from custody until his September trial. That request was denied by Judge Rex Reed, who said the Indiana Supreme Court acted unconstitutionally in granting similar releases for defendants being held on charges of murder.
On Monday, Kosciusko County Prosecutor Charles Waggoner filed a motion for dismissal of a misdemeanor charge of assisting a criminal, the least serious charge against Dimas. Waggoner said this morning that he would rather not comment on the reason for the dismissal.
Charges of murder and a Class D felony offense of abuse of a corpse remain pending against Dimas. No other arrests have been made in the case.
R. Steven Hearn, the court-appointed attorney in the Dimas case, has requested a transcript of the recent hearing regarding Criminal Rule 4 - a ruling that says a defendant is entitled to be released on his own recognizance if he is detained for more than six months without trial. Dimas has been incarcerated on a related charge in Noble County since last September. An appeal in the judge's recent ruling may be made, but no such filing has yet taken place.
A grand jury indicted Dimas in the death of 22-year-old Crystal Gayle Homister, whose remains were found in April 2000 in a wooded area off CR 1050N on the east side of Lake Wawasee. A forensic pathologist's investigation revealed that Homister died of blunt force trauma to the head before she was burned.
Dimas also faces a charge of intimidation after allegedly threatening a woman in Noble County in connection with Homister's death.
