Left: Kayla Netherland (Facebook). Right: Jeremy McBride (Marion County Jail).
An Indiana man is headed to prison for decades for shooting his estranged wife in the back while she was five months pregnant, seriously injuring her and killing the unborn baby.
Jeremy McBride, 37, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder and feticide. He received 30 years for the attempted murder charge and nine years for the feticide charge in connection with the shooting of Kayla Netherland. The sentences will be served concurrently. McBride received credit for the 395 days he”s already served plus another 131 days, per the sentencing order.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department responded around 6 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2025, to a shooting in the 700 block of East Pleasant Run Parkway. Officers arrived to find the Netherland, then 25 years old, in the bathroom, suffering from gunshot wounds. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital. While doctors were able to stabilize her, they were not able to save the child.
According to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, around the time of the shooting, one of Netherland’s friends arrived at the home to do laundry and walked inside. She saw McBride standing over Netherland. McBride looked at the friend and simply walked out the front door without a word, cops noted. The friend told police she believed McBride was responsible for shooting Netherland. Using license plate readers, officers tracked down McBride and pulled him over.
McBride got out of the car, which rolled away because it wasn’t in park and hit a pole, authorities said. He told the officer, “I was going to turn myself in to the police station,” and said the gun in question was in the car. He then allegedly asked, “Is she ok?” In the car, police recovered the gun and handwritten notes to his estranged wife discussing their relationship.
“McBride wrote to [Netherland] of his frustrations with her infidelity, his frustrations with their failed relationship, his anger & insecurities which led him to mistreat others, his belief that he has not ‘molded’ himself into an individual [she] would want to have children with, and that he had wanted children with her,” detectives wrote.
After receiving his Miranda warnings, the defendant told detectives he was upset that while they hadn’t gotten divorced, “she had gotten pregnant” by another man, according to the affidavit. The marriage hadn’t been going well, and they had separated in September 2024, but he hoped they could get back together.
“Maybe she will come back one day, but not for me. But in many ways, I killed her,” McBride allegedly wrote.
He bought a gun and ammunition a few days before the shooting with the intent of killing her, the baby, and himself. McBride said he and Netherland had been hanging out on the day of the shooting, shopping at Goodwill before returning to her house. They were talking, with her in the bathroom and him sitting on the bed, the affidavit said. He reportedly said shooting her “made sense in that moment,” so he fired five shots into her back. She never saw him shoot, he said.
“Certainly what is alleged is this person went to great lengths to carry out what he intended to do,” Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears told local Fox affiliate WXIN.
Cops say Netherland underwent at least two surgeries: one to remove her unborn baby and the other to address her internal injuries.
