LEBANON, Ind. (WTHR) - Prosecutors painted a different picture Monday of the man charged in a deadly home invasion in Lebanon.
In the Boone County Jail interview one week before he was charged with murder, 19-year-old Zachariah Wright claimed he was not a violent person.
"I've never harmed anyone in my life," Wright told Eyewitness News. "I've never done anything violent. I've never even been in a fistfight before."
But the 23 charges filed Monday by Prosecutor Todd Meyer contradict that non-violence claim with allegations of a vicious knife attack that killed Max Foster and an attempt to sexually assault and burn his wife, Sonja.
She was also stabbed but survived.
Another contradiction, a landlord said Wright got rid of his shirt and boots before returning home from the crime scene last week. We asked Wright about that last Monday while he waited to learn whether murder charges will be filed against him.
Q: Did you discard those to get rid of evidence?
A: No.
Q: Were those a bloody shirt and bloody shoes?
A:No.
But Monday, the prosecutor said they found a pair of blue jeans in Wright's bedroom that were allegedly "covered in red stains" and "presumptively tested positive by the lab for blood."
Investigators say the blood that created the stains contained the DNA of Max and Sonja Foster .
Perhaps the biggest contradiction in the past investigation, last week, Wright's landlord, Mike Boutwell, said Wright "seemed like a good kid. Tried to get his life together. He was going to work, he was paying his rent on time."
But the prosecutor paints a different picture of a troubled teen with a history of lawbreaking.
"It's horrific. As I stated and many of us have been talking and working on the case since it happened, it is everyone's worst nightmare," Meyer said.
