Murder of Clay County man recorded on girlfriends voicemail

September 12, 2023

Brazil, Indiana man, Cody Allen Wade, charged with the murder of his mother's boyfriend, has been sentenced earlier this week to 85 years in prison with no chance of parole. Brazil is a city in Clay County, Indiana, just over 60 miles from Indianapolis, with a population of just over 8,000 residents.

On June 18, 2020, 33-year-old Wade made a phone call to his mother that went straight to voicemail. Wade was unaware that he didn’t properly hang up the call, and as a result, the crime he was about to commit would be recorded in full.

According to local newspapers, Wade, who was diagnosed bipolar and under the influence of methamphetamine at the time, made his way to his mother’s house at 236 East National Avenue. Reports suggest that Wade was having issues with his mother, and believed that she had disrespected him, although there is no evidence to back up this statement.

The recording also captured Wade conversing with another person on the way to his mother’s place, wherein he stated that he was going to kill someone. Wade had left a cookout earlier that day, and stopped by a friend’s house, all of which was recorded on his mother’s voicemail.

Wade’s mother was in the presence of her boyfriend at the time, Mr. Carl Haviland of Clay City, who would end up losing his life in a fatal altercation with the suspect who stabbed him a total of four times. As Wade attacked Haviland, Wade’s mother desperately tried to break up the altercation, but was unable to restrain her son from attacking her boyfriend. Haviland was stabbed to death and assaulted in front of her and unbeknownst to Wade, the entire ordeal was being recorded on his mother’s voicemail and would later be used as a key piece of evidence in his future conviction.

On the disturbing recording, Wade can be heard kicking and taunting the victim with racial slurs as Haviland lays there bleeding to death.

The Brazil Police Department were called out to the crime scene and using information provided to them, arrested Wade, who was taken into custody at the Clay County Justice Center. Haviland was transported to St. Vincent Clay Hospital and pronounced dead after succumbing to his injuries.

Two months prior to the murder, Wade had been serving out a stint behind bars for Arson, for a crime he committed in Vigo County in 2018. He was on parole at the time he brutally murdered Carl Haviland.

Clay County Prosecutor Emily Clarke said of the crime: “All murders are gruesome. I think what made this case especially so was the fact that the defendant had inadvertently recorded himself throughout the murder, so we were able to hear the entire thing.”

She added: There was taunting going on, the defendant was making racial slurs at the victim and saying horrible things.”

According to his obituary, Haviland was born in 1966. In 1985 Haviland graduated from North Central High School in Farmersburg and went on to work for Brazil based company, Morris Manufacturing.

He went on to become a boiler tech in U.S Navy, serving during Desert Storm, and enlisted in the National Guard in Linton following his discharge.

He loved the outdoors. He could often be found walking his dogs in the nearby woods, fishing in local lakes, hiking and foraging for mushrooms. Those who knew him described him as having a good sense of humor and being a generally good person.

Following a four-day trial in August, Wade was sentenced to 85 years in prison On September 6.

Clay County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Pell said of Wade's actions that day: “The defendant repeatedly stabbed Carl Haviland not only in front of the defendant’s own mother but did so in spite of her efforts to physically prevent him from committing the crime.”

His 85 year sentence consisted of 60 years for murder, 5 years felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer with injury, 5 years for battery on a law enforcement officer with injury, 2 and half years for charge of battery on a public safety official and 1 year for resisting law enforcement. An extra 15 years were added to the sentence for habitually offending. Wade will receive credit for the time he has already served in jail, but with such a heavy sentence, will likely not step foot into a world outside of bars as a free man again.

In a written statement to the court, Wade claimed that he was remorseful of his actions that night and said: “I lost my friend that night, too.”

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