Northwest Indiana Shotgun Killer Christopher Dwayne Peterson & German Methodist Episcopal Cemetery

Obadyah Ben-Yisrayl (born Christopher Dwayne Peterson January 20, 1969) is an American serial killer found guilty of committing four murders and acquitted on three other murder charges related to the "Shotgun Killer" spree in Indiana from October 30, 1990 to December 18, 1990.

The murders took place in a number of jurisdictions, and Peterson faced a number of trials in different venues. Peterson had initially confessed and then recanted. He was acquitted in two trials for three of the murders and found guilty of four murders in two subsequent trials. Initially sentenced to death for those murders, his death sentence was commuted in 2004 [non-primary source needed] Ronald J. Harris was also charged and found guilty in two of the murders.
Between October 30, 1990 and December 18, 1990, there were a series of murders in northern Indiana in which seven people were killed by assault with a shotgun.

A witness at one of the murders provided a description of the killer to police, who made up a drawing of the suspect and distributed it on flyers. The witness's description was of a "clean-shaven, slender, white man with long stringy brown hair."

Peterson, from Gary, and at the time UA from the Marines, and Antwion McGee, 21, were arrested January 29, 1991, after a robbery and an attempted murder of a restaurant manager at the Southlake Mall near Merrillville.

McGee led police to Ronald J. Harris, 21. Harris told police he was with Peterson during two incidents where he alleged Peterson killed two of the victims. McGee also told police that Peterson admitted the killings.

The incident is controversial for a number of reasons such as Peterson is African American, while the initial descriptions of the suspect of the murders was described as white. Peterson had been illegally arrested for committing another crime which impacted the use of evidence in the "Shotgun Killer" spree trials because it was deemed improperly collected; Peterson's initial confession was recanted under claims of duress; the trials with all-white juries came to different conclusions than juries which included people of other races; and in the final case to go to trial, the judge over-ruled the jury's decision not to impose the death penalty.

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