Lyndsey Polston shown in a Knox County mugshot from April 2013: There has been no explanation what her facial injury was, nor how it was sustained; however, she’s charged with a Class D felony in Knox after the incident that brought it about.
VINCENNES, Ind.— The woman at the heart of a bloody scene outside Denny’s Restaurant in Vincennes this past August has been charged in the incident.
However, police reports are still unclear as to exactly where the stabbing of Palestine police officer Josh Green occurred, and exactly who brought the weapon to the incident in the first place.
Lyndsey Polston, 25, of rural Lawrenceville, was charged October 30 with a single count of Criminal Recklessness, an Indiana Class D felony, in connection with the stabbing of her ex-boyfriend Green on August 17, 2013.
Polston, however, was also the recipient of what appeared to be grievous injuries during the incident in question.
And the police reports supplied as an affidavit for determination of probable cause are so seriously lacking in detail, with what little bit provided contradicting what witnesses on the scene have told Disclosure, that it’s unclear exactly who might be covering for who…but it doesn’t appear that anyone is ready to come clean about it anytime soon.
Reports stabbing took place outside
Offered by officer DJ Halter of the Vincennes Police Department, the details begin with the Aug. 17, 8:29 p.m. call that dispatched officers to Denny’s on Sixth Street in Vincennes, “reference to a stabbing that had occurred.”
Halter stated that he arrived to find a “white male on the ground with his head facing southwest, between a red Dodge Ram 1500 4-door truck and a white Toyota 4-door Echo.
“There were several bystanders around him attempting to control bleeding of his left forearm area,” Halter reported. “Officer Waggoner arrived and a tourniquet was applied to control the bleeding.”
Halter said he was advised that the stabbing suspect was “still in the area” and he was directed to “a female with dark hair and a blue shirt sitting on the curb across the parking lot with what appeared to be a blood-soaked rag on her face.”
Fire and EMS arrived, he reported, and treatment was given to the male who was identified as Josh Green and the female suspect was later identified as Lyndsey Polston.
Halter stated he spoke with Green while he was being treated. Green said that Polston had stabbed him in the arm, and he had “wrestled with her and then punched her in the face and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground bleeding from his arm.”
At right is Josh Green in uniform; he is currently a police officer in Palestine (Crawford County) and happens to be good buds with Vincennes cops.
Mysterious Ms. Helm
Green, Halter reported, “kept asking where his daughter was.
“I advised him I did not see a child,” Halter reported. “Green stated that he was meeting Polston for a child exchange and that she went nuts and tried to kill him and that we needed to find his daughter who was 3 years old. I asked if anyone knew where she was, and I was advised by a bystander that was later identified as Barbara L. Helm had the child and was in the backseat of Officer Waggoner’s patrol car and was fine.”
Halter stated that Knox County EMS arrived and took over care of Green while Halter grabbed crime scene tape and taped off approximately one-half of the Denny’s parking lot.
“In doing so,” Halter noted, “I located blood droplets all the way to the front door of Denny’s and across the parking lot.”
Halter stated that a Major Jacobs of VPD arrived and instructed another officer, Gewirtzman, to start taking photos of the scene while detectives were contacted.
At this point it was determined that the other party involved (Polston) was injured and she was transported to the hospital for treatment as well.
“Initially it was relayed to me that Green had punched Polston in an attempt to defend himself and that is how she got her injuries,” Halter stated in his report. “But once at the hospital the injuries that she sustained were not consistent with that of someone being punched in the face.”
Kell a ‘friend’
Halter said he was advised that an Anna Kell had witnessed the incident.
He spoke with her, and was advised that “she was a friend of Mr. Green and was sitting in the front passenger seat of his truck with him in the driver’s seat and his daughter right behind her in her booster seat.”
Kell advised that Polston arrived and pulled up on the passenger side of the truck (to the south) and exited her car, then opened the back passenger door of the extended cab truck.
“Once she opened the door,” Halter wrote, “both Polston and Kell’s eyes met and Kell stated that Polston asked her ‘who the f^*k she was.’ Kell stated that Polston told her the following: ‘You f^*king bitch you’re not to ever be around my child. I’ll kill you.’”
Kell then reportedly told Halter that “she reached down in to the floorboard and produced a pair of scissors and attempted to stab her,” but Green got involved and “they struggled.”
“Somewhere in the struggle,” Halter wrote, “he exited that vehicle and collapses on the ground on the passenger side of the truck yelling that she (Polston) had just stabbed him.”
At right was the scene on the night in question, when Denny’s employees were washing the blood off the sidewalk and parking lot. Disclosure staff interviewed Denny’s staff, and were told a completely different story than what Vincennes police reports reflect…and one that fills in a few holes that the ‘official’ report contains.
Blood evidence
Halter noted the blood was present on the back seat of the truck, on the car seat, on the child’s shoes and her shirt, and also on the back of the front passenger seat in the upper right corner.
“There was blood on several small items in the floorboard on the passenger side in the back along with the door jamb and the ground between Green’s vehicle and Polston’s vehicle,” Halter wrote. “Present on the ground was a diaper bag and a pair of scissors and a cell phone with the back cover knocked off of it.”
Halter noted that the detectives arrived and began processing the scene, while the other officers stayed at the ER with Green and Polston; vehicles were inventoried and taken control of by the department.
That was the extent of the probable cause statement, which provided enough cause for the prosecutor to file the Class D felony, wherein Polston is alleged to have “recklessly, with a deadly weapon, perform an act that created a substantial risk of bodily injury to Green.”
She was notified by summons on Oct. 30 to appear for a hearing scheduled two days later, Nov. 1.
Polston, via her attorney, Christopher Ramsey, waived a prelim and set a pretrial conference for March 12, 2014.
Which ‘she’?
The official report is disturbing on a lot of different levels.
The most disturbing aspect of it is its vagueness in light of what Denny’s employees told Disclosure within an hour of the incident.
Those employees told Disclosure staff that the incident actually occurred inside the restaurant, and that they personally witnessed Green leave the restaurant with a pair of very sharp scissors skewered through his forearm, stagger out to the parking lot, and get in his truck just after the scissors fell out.
This would explain the blood trail from the restaurant to the truck, which, interestingly enough, was NOT explained in the police report.
Left further unexplained in the report was the injury to Polston’s face, which can be clearly seen in her mugshot.
The police report states: “Ms. Kell then stated that she reached down in to the floorboard and produced a pair of scissors and attempted to stab her, but Mr. Green got involved and they struggled.”
It is completely unclear which “she/her” was the one who grabbed the obviously very sharp scissors—Polston, or Kell—from the floorboard.
It is also completely inexplicable why a pair of very sharp scissors would be in the floorboard in the back of a vehicle where a three-year-old rides regularly.
Incidentally, Denny’s employees clearly told Disclosure that the scissors were inside a bag Polston was carrying.
Nevertheless, the injury to Polston’s face could very easily have been caused by Kell under the circumstances. But, court records show that neither Green nor Kell have been charged with anything.
More contradictions/mysteries
Other assertions within the police report that contradict either what the employees told Disclosure staff or what Green himself entered in a request for order of protection immediately after the incident (this in Lawrence County) involve the mysterious Barbara L. Helm, who apparently saw to it that the three-year-old was out of the vehicle and away from the bloody mess (if indeed that version is accurate).
Green, in his petition for OP, indicated that Polston’s mother, Kathy Waller, and Waller’s husband were present. But nowhere in the police report are they mentioned.
As well, no mention was made of Kell’s association with Green: She’s his latest babymomma, actually going by the name of Anna Sanders; at the time of the alleged incident, she had just a few weeks prior birthed another Green offspring, Alexis, and Polston, whose documented jealously borders on the insane, no doubt knew this and was openly hostile toward Kell-Sanders. The whole situation, therefore, was the result of a series of bad decisions that culminated when Green apparently thought it was a good idea to bring the latest babymomma into the presence of the previous one during a visitation exchange.
The contradictions only deepen the strangeness surrounding the case, and lend the appearance that someone is lying, in the midst of it all.
Whether those lies will be what gets Polston out of her charges in the end may not be seen until the approach of the March 2014 court date.
A jury trial has been scheduled for Polston in Knox County for April 2, following the final scheduled pre-trial setting.